Last Seen Alive

2022 1h 35m English 5.7

Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

The movie opens with a brief scene of Detective Paterson (Russell Hornsby) telling a beaten-up Pete "Knuckles" Daniels (Ethan Embry) he'll be doing life but does not say why.8 hours earlier, Estranged husband and wife, Will (Gerard Butler) and Lisa Spann (Jaimie Alexander), are driving to Lisa's parents' house, as she's requested some time apart. It is implied that Lisa cheated on Will. Will still loves Lisa and asks her not to separate. Before reaching the house, they stop for gas and Lisa heads inside. As Lisa walks out of the gas station, she's stopped by an unknown man and a large white truck pulls up, blocking the rest of their interaction from view. Will finishes gassing up and looks for Lisa but cannot find her in the store or bathrooms. He starts to panic, frantically looking around the entire area, calling her phone, and asking if anyone's seen her. He finally calls the local police department to report her disappearance and heads to her parents' house.Lisa's parents, Barry (Bruce Altman) and Anna Adams (Cindy Hogan), get into a small argument with Will as he tries to tell them what happened and ask for their help in locating her. A flashback reveals the tension between the couple, where Lisa initially suggests they have some time apart and can't explain why she's no longer invested in their marriage. Will heads back to the gas station and meets Detective Paterson, who asks the gas station clerk, Oscar (Michael Irby), questions and for security footage, to which Oscar claims the cameras are broken. Finding no leads, the detective returns to the station and Will questions Oscar once more. Noticing the cameras are recording, he starts to suspect Oscar, and gets into a fight with him until he's able to rip the CCTV box from the wall. He shows the footage to Paterson at the station immediately. They watch the start of Lisa's interaction with the man until the white truck cuts off view.Detective Paterson then takes Will to be interrogated, implying his involvement in her disappearance due to their broken marriage. Will had told Paterson that his wife cheated on her, and Paterson takes that as motive for Will's anger and possible disappearance of Lisa. Will also has a $2 MM life insurance on Lisa.Will leaves angrily and shows Barry and Anna the picture of the man and his car in the security footage, and Anna and Barry identify the man as Knuckles, their handyman. Will pulls up to Knuckles' trailer and questions him about Lisa. They get into a violent fight in which Will finally subdues Knuckles and takes his gun. Knuckles says he didn't have a choice and was forced to leave Lisa with someone named Frank. Will duct tapes Knuckles and stuffs him in his trunk as he speeds off to find Frank but gets pulled over for speeding. The cop forces Will to step out of his car to search it. Just before he finds Knuckles in the trunk, Will bolts for the nearby woods on the side of the road. The cop then finds Knuckles whimpering in the trunk.At the same time, Detective Paterson visits Barry and Anna, revealing her affair with "Clint" but cut off all contact with him afterwards despite his attempts to reach out to her. Paterson had hacked into Lisa's email account and figured all of this out. Another flashback indicates Anna was distrustful of Will.Will reaches Frank's location based on directions he got from Knuckles. Will fast-talks a guard into letting him pass into Frank's drug lab in the woods full of addicts and sees Oscar arrive, confirming his earlier suspicions. Will sneaks around the camp in search of Lisa, while Detective Paterson questions Knuckles about Lisa's kidnapping. A flashback reveals the moment Knuckles takes Lisa, threatening her into his car. Will quietly stalks Frank into a building, momentarily reminiscing on good times with his wife, before pulling a gun on Frank and begging him to tell him where his wife is. He ends up shooting dead Frank and one of his men as the building catches fire with all the drug chemicals and flammable tanks.The beginning scene with Detective Paterson and Knuckles replays as Paterson pushes Knuckles to confess. Finally, Knuckles reveals Lisa is dead and how he had kidnapped her to ransom her off to Will, describing how he'd been forced by Frank to fix his "mistake" and dig a hole to bury her. Will, now free to search the camp, encounters Oscar, who reveals he has Lisa's phone and that he knows where she is, demanding $20,000 for information. The building suddenly explodes, killing Oscar, and Detective Paterson arrives on-scene. He tells Will to stay and goes to investigate the hole, finding it not filled and empty. At the same time, Will hears banging from a nearby shed and finds a terrified but alive Lisa tied up. They embrace and he carries her out.At the Adams' house, Detective Paterson briefly stops by to inform Will that Knuckles confessed and imply he knows not everyone at the drug lab died in the explosion due to gunshot wounds being found on some bodies. He smiles and drives off. Lisa tells Will she wants to show him something and they walk off, smiling and holding hands.