The Commuter

**The Commuter** is a 2018 film starring Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill and Elizabeth McGovern, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, written by Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi and Ryan Engle and produced by Alex Heineman and Andrew Rona.

The film was a financial failure as it generated a loss of $0.02 million.

## Plot

Michael MacCauley, an Irish-American life insurance salesman and former police officer, is a family man with a wife and teenaged son. He goes through the same routine train commute to work and back every day, taking the Hudson Line from Tarrytown to Grand Central Terminal, often interacting with the same other commuters. His daily routine is interrupted when he is abruptly laid off from his job after a decade at the same company, leading him to wonder how he will pay his mortgage or afford his son's college tuition.

On the train home, Michael meets a mysterious woman named Joanna, who makes small talk with him. Joanna describes herself as academic who studies human behavior and tells him there are 16 distinct types of personalities. She proposes a hypothetical situation to Michael, asking him to do one little thing that he is uniquely skilled for, the results of which would have consequences that he would know nothing about, but would affect one of the passengers on the train. Joanna's one little thing that she wants Michael to do is locate "Prynne," the alias of an unknown passenger, whom she says doesn't belong and has something stolen. Joanna proceeds to tell him that he will find $25,000 in the bathroom and will be paid another $75,000 when the job is done. Michael starts to question whether this is real or hypothetical, and Joanna, before she gets off the train, alludes to him being a former cop. Out of curiosity, Michael searches the bathroom and finds an envelope with $25,000.

He attempts to leave the train but is stopped by a young woman who hands him another envelope with Michael's wife's wedding ring, and tells him it's a warning. Michael attempts to call his wife but with no response. Michael attempts to warn a fellow passenger of what is going on by writing on his newspaper. Michael leaves a voicemail describing the situation to former partner, Murphy, and then receives a call from Joanna, threatening him and his family. She tells him to look outside, where he sees the passenger he gave the newspaper to deliberately pushed in front of a bus. Joanna then points him to a GPS tracker in his jacket and instructs he plant it on Prynne.

Michael gives a fake report of suspicious behavior to a conductor, who announces he plans to search a woman's bag. A man immediately leaves the car and Michael follows him, at which point he attacks Michael. They fight and Michael plants the GPS tracker on him. Murphy calls back and informs him that Prynne is a key witness in a supposed suicide case of a man at the city planner's office, Enrique Mendez, leading Michael to realize that Prynne will be killed and that Michael is being set up.

In a deserted car, Michael discovers the body of the man he planted the GPS tracker on and a badge revealing he was an FBI agent. Sabotaging the air conditioning in the train except for the last car, Michael forces all of the remaining passengers into the last car. He realizes another passenger, a musician, killed the FBI agent; he also received the same deal for $100,000, but with instructions to kill Prynne. Michael and the musician fight, at which point the musician is thrown from the train and killed. The real "Prynne" is revealed to be a young girl named Sofia, who is holding incriminating information on powerful people and was to go into witness protection at the final stop of the train. Michael asks Sofia why she did not go to the police. She reveals that it was the police who killed Enrique, who was Sofia's cousin.

Joanna calls Michael and tries to convince him to kill Sofia for the sake of his family, but Michael refuses. Joanna activates the fail-safe plan and derails the train in order to kill everyone aboard. Michael manages to save all of the passengers by unhooking the final car from the rest of the train right before a curve.

Assuming Michael is holding the train hostage, Murphy is sent to talk to him, only to be revealed as the cop who killed Enrique. Michael and Murphy engage in a fight, during which Michael removes Murphy's police tracker, which identifies him as a "friendly" to the snipers outside. The snipers, believing Murphy to be Michael, shoot and kill Murphy.

Outside of the train, Sofia is met by the FBI and proceeds to tell them what she knows. Michael is hailed as a hero and exonerated by the other passengers while his family is rescued by the FBI. His old captain admits that Murphy and a few others had been under investigation for some time and offers Michael his job back. Sometime later, Joanna is on a train back from Chicago. Michael approaches her and confronts Joanna about her actions before he shows his police detective badge, implying he is about to arrest her.
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