Plot Summary
Directed by and starring Nathan Shepka in the lead role, Dead Before They Wake tells the story of a nightclub bouncer named Alex who is hired to track down a woman’s missing daughter.
The girl, whose name is Bianca, has been abducted into a sex trafficking ring. Alex manages to track her down but as a consequence of his bravery, he puts his life in serious danger.
In this ending explained article for Dead Before They Wake, we ask the question: What happens to Alex at the end of the movie?
Who hires Alex?
Alex is hired by a retired lawyer named Evan (Sylvester McCoy) who has been contacted by a government official who needs somebody to rescue Bianca, the daughter of a woman he is involved with.
Evan turns to Alex after hearing that he might be the type of person who will get the job done. Alex refuses the job at first, despite the £20,000 fee. But when Evan shows him a dvd containing footage of former sex trafficking victims talking about their terrible experiences, he agrees to look for Bianca.
Where is Bianca?
Bianca has been abducted by two men named Amar and Ghadir who run a sex trafficking operation that specialises in underage girls. They own a number of shops, each of which contains upstairs apartments where girls are sold for sex. But while they are the face of the operation, the real mastermind behind this criminal enterprise is a man named Mr. Holden (Patrick Bergin), who operates the business remotely.
During his investigation into Bianca’s disappearance, Alex discovers the whereabouts of one of the buildings owned by Amar and Ghadir. When he approaches the person guarding the premises, he pretends to be somebody wanting to sleep with one of the girls. He then takes the guard prisoner and tortures him until he learns all he needs to know about the sex trafficking ring.
Does Alex rescue Bianca?
After learning about the trafficking operation, including the secret symbol that he needs to draw on his hands to prove he’s a genuine punter, Alex is able to find the building where Bianca is being held. After gaining entry and showing the symbol to the goons guarding the place, he is able to gain access to the girls upstairs.
Eventually, Alex finds Bianca and makes his escape with her. He takes her back to his caravan and gives her a place to sleep for the night. His good deed does not have a happy ending, however. When checking on Bianca the next morning, he finds her lying in the bed with her wrists slit open. She has committed suicide, presumably because she didn’t want to live with the trauma that she had endured.
Why doesn’t Alex go to the police?
Alex is worried that he’ll be implicated in the torture of the guy that he beat up earlier in the movie. So, when he speaks to his girlfriend Gemma about Bianca’s situation (before he finds the girl’s dead body), he tells her that he isn’t ready to tell the police about the sex trafficking ring.
Alex doesn’t even go to the police when he discovers Bianca has died. Instead, he puts Bianca in a body bag and takes her to a river, where he disposes of her corpse. He then returns to the apartment building where some of the girls are being held. Here, he smashes up the place and violently murders those who have paid to have sex with the teenagers.
Unfortunately, Alex is taken prisoner by one of the gang leaders and transported to a warehouse. He’s not held captive for long, however. As the goons failed to search him, he is able to pull out a gun and wreak bloody vengeance on his captors. Sadly, his girlfriend, who had also been taken prisoner, is killed by one of the traffickers.
What happens to Alex?
Alex kills Amar and Ghadir but is badly hurt in the process. At the end of the movie, we see him sitting by a river. He then collapses and presumably dies as a result of his injuries. While we aren’t explicitly told that he is dead, we don’t think he is alive when the closing credits start to roll.
One person who does survive is Mr. Holden. He sees the carnage that Alex has caused and mourns the loss of his illegal operation. But is this the end of his criminal enterprise? As he might have other gangs working for him, this is something we will never know.