Criminal (2016)

Criminal (2016) – Full Plot, Cast & Ending Explained

Watch the official trailer of ‘Criminal’

‘Criminal’ cast & characters

The movie “Criminal”, an American action thriller movie, was released in 2016. It stars actors Kevin Costner, who is playing Jerico Stewart, Gary Oldman, playing Quaker Wells, Tommy Lee Jones as Dr. Micah Franks, Ryan Reynolds as Bill Pope, and Gal Gadot as Jill Pope. The plot of the movie ‘Criminal’ is explained below:

Introduction to the movie ‘Criminal’

In the introductory scene of the movie ‘Criminal’, a man named Jerico is shown standing on the beach, and a background voice is heard. It is actually his voice-over, which says that they knew what they were getting when they got inside his head.

The voice-over states that they were wrong and that anyone who hurts him will get the worst in return. Jerico is shown to turn his face to an armed security man, who picks up a gun and is sitting in a van watching him.

The movie begins with a CIA agent, known as Bill Pope, hurrying to an accessories shop and enquiring about a brown leather bag that his wife has selected from that shop. The salesgirl offers him a black bag instead, containing cash money.

He opens it, checks the cash, and rushes outside, as some people are after his life. He then calls his home while running away from these people and tries to behave normally. Bill has a daughter, Emma, and his wife, Jill, in the family

Enter the main Villain of the movie, Heimdahl

Bill is actually followed by henchmen of a Spanish anarchist and tech-savvy, Xavier Heimdahl, who happens to be an industrialist and the founder of Stone Harp Industries. He is supported by a woman, Elsa Mueller, who also happens to be his girlfriend.

Elsa has served the German special forces in the past. She is following Bill Pope, who just manages to grab a cab and slip away from that place. Elsa informs Heimdahl about the credentials of the car in which Bill tries to escape.

Elsa is joined by other henchmen, who trap Bill in a secluded compound and kill the driver of the car. They catch CIA agent Bill and wait for Heimdahl to interrogate him.

Heimdahl asks Bill about the Dutchman named Yaan Strook, who happens to be a hacker and has created a wormhole program that can allow Heimdahl to bypass the computer codes that protect the government’s nuclear defense codes.

Bill does not give any information to Heimdahl even after being electrocuted by him. Heimdahl tortures him repeatedly and kills him.

The CIA boss gets to know about Pope’s location

CIA agent Bill’s boss, Quaker Wells, and his team are also tracking him from his office, and after some time, his team reaches the spot where Bill lies motionless, while Heimdahl manages to escape. They try to revive Bill, but it is too late. Quaker Wells is informed that Bill is not responding and has already died.

The CIA contacts Dr. Franks, who is working on a memory program that can place the memory of the dead into the brain of another living entity. But he has only been experimenting with it on rats.

The CIA sends a person to Dr. Frank and directs him to put the memory of Bill Pope into some other living person. Their objective is to locate the hacker, Yaan Strook, also known as The Dutchman, who was about to finalize the deal with the CIA through the agent, Bill Pope. When they ask Dr. Frank whether he has any person who can be used for this, the doctor reveals the name of Jerico Stewart.

The main character, Jerico, is shown in jail

Jerico, who is in jail and is a ruthless and remorseless killer, is devoid of any emotions. He actually has frontal Lobe syndrome, in which his frontal brain lobe remains in an undeveloped state.

Jerico is brought from the jail to Dover Air Force Base hospital in Delaware after being overpowered with tranquilizers in the jail by the CIA when Jerico resists his arrest. Dr. Frank is present there along with his team, who are going to perform an operation on Jerico.

When Dr. Frank asks him about his head injury, Jerico actually had a bad incident in his childhood, in which his father threw him out of a moving car’s window. His father got furious and threw him away when his mother told his father that he was not the father of the child.

The damage to the frontal lobe of Jerico’s brain is the result of that injury in childhood. An on-air media interview takes place with Heimdahl, in which he is asked about the treason charge against him by the Spanish government.

He replies that he wants to fight against corruption at the highest level and highlight the political murders. Heimdahl alleges that all the politicians, police, and the judiciary are hand in glove with each other. They give rise to corruption and bad practices at all levels.

On being asked whether he means to overthrow the Spanish government, Heimdahl replies that he wants all the governments to fall and revolutions to get started all over the world. As per him, the world is better off without governments.

Jerico is injected with the memories of Bill Pope

Here, Jerico is being injected with the memories of Bill Pope, the deceased CIA agent, through a robotic operation. The procedure begins to get complicated, and Jerico’s temperature starts to increase rapidly.

At a certain point of time, the team of doctors decides to remove the robotic arm from his head since he is just going to bleed from the high temperature in his body. But Quake Wells, the CIA boss, insists on continuing the procedure, as he doesn’t seem to care even if he dies during the procedure.

Luckily, Jerico’s condition starts to stabilize, and the operation is done successfully. Immediately after the procedure, Quake starts to pressurize Jerico to recall his name and insists that he remembers himself as Bill Pope.

He forcibly tries to narrate the story of Bill Pope and thinks that Jerico will tell him the whereabouts of the hacker Yaan Strook, known as The Dutchman. Jerico resists his attempts to pressure him as his head is in pain, and he wants a painkiller.

Doctor Franks tells Quake Wells to leave him alone, as he is not in a condition to respond to his pressure tactics. Still, Quake continues his effort to convince Jerico that he is Bill Pope and that he should remember all the incidents that happened with Bill Pope.

He tries again to forcibly narrate the story of Bill Pope and the hacker, and how the hacker, Yaan Strook, was about to cheat the CIA.

Quake tells Jerico that it was only you who wanted to strike a deal between the hacker and the CIA; otherwise, the hacker was ordered to be finished. Quake wants Jerico to reveal the place where Yaan Strook, the hacker, was kept by him.

Jerico starts to get flashes from Bill Pope’s life and the hacker, too, but he doesn’t reveal anything. Quake gets frustrated and furious with Jerico’s behavior and starts yelling at the doctor, too, and leaves.

The hacker sends a video message to the CIA

In the CIA office, Quake and his team get a video message from Strook, the hacker. Strook informs them that he is the hacker and his cyber name is ‘The Dutchman’ and that he has every US nuclear arsenal under his control and can activate, authorize, or override any command.

He says that he will sell the wormhole back to the CIA, but wants some of his conditions to be fulfilled by the CIA for that. He wants asylum, money, a passport, and protection in lieu of the Wormhole program from him.

After this, Strook, ‘The hacker’, calls Bill Pope’s home number to seek help from him. Bill’s wife, Jill, takes the call and informs Strook that her husband is dead.

Here, Jerico is shifted to some place by a couple of CIA agents, but Jerico manages to cut off a piece of metal from the car’s window and attacks one of the agents.

This results in the accident and the car crashes, grievously injuring the agents, but Jerico escapes unhurt. He blows up the car from its leaking petrol and a cigarette to make it look like a genuine accident and escapes.

Jerico escapes to a nearby town

Jerico manages to sneak into the nearby town and snatches food from another customer in an eatery. He beats some men and grabs their van. He tells them that he is taking their van, and after they are down in the fight, he escapes in their van.

Throughout his driving, he gets memory flashes of Bill and sees his wife and the money bag, which disturbs him a lot.

Finally, Jerico is seen visiting Bill Pope’s home to find the bag of money that Bill had kept somewhere. Here, Jerico ties Bill’s wife to her bed and heads towards her daughter Emma’s room.

But, during all this, he continues to get flashes of Bill’s memories, seeing Jill and the time they spent together. He also gets some flashes of vision of the bag of money repeatedly.

Jerico comes back to Jill’s room, where he unties her and asks for the money bag. She tells him that she doesn’t know and tells him he can take whatever he wants from there. Jerico picks up some things and puts them into the bag, and while he is leaving, Jill manages to switch on the alarm from her tied foot.

The security calls on her landline, which Jerico picks up, answers the code asked by them, and dodges them by saying that Jill may have accidentally hit the alarm button. He leaves that place immediately after that in the same stolen van.

Yaan Strook sends another video to the CIA

In another video sent by Yaan Strook, he claims that she is the sole administrator of the vigilant shield of the emergency control and command systems for the United States. He says that he now intends to sell the wormhole program to the Russians.

He says that the Americans have betrayed him and that Heimdahl, too, is after him now since he parted ways with him, after agreeing to work for him. Now, since both the Americans and Heimdahl want to kill him, he is given a deadline for his demands till 6 pm, and after that, he will demonstrate his powers over the control system.

The Russians, too, are waiting for him to act to see what sort of control he has and what he can do with his wormhole program.

Here, Jerico, while selling the articles he brought from Bill’s home, takes back the comb of Bill’s daughter Emma from the shopkeeper, as he gets flashes of her childhood memories in his head. Jerico starts to get trapped between his own self and Bill’s personality since Bill’s memories are implanted into his head now.

Jerico has an altercation with a stranger

He orders his food in French and mistakenly believes that he spoke Spanish. One man corrects him, but Jerico punches him on the nose as that man replies to Jerico back in the same language.

After that, Jerico heads towards the London Public Library and tries to log in to the computer using Bill’s codes.

CIA officials get to know this, and they track him from there and want to know what Jerico is up to. They send the team to the library, and the team finds out that Jerico had accessed the phone tracking software from Bill’s ID account using a remote access link. The team also comes to know that Jerico has extracted Dr. Frank’s number from there. 

On getting this information, Quake calls Dr Frank and tells him that Jerico is going to meet him soon and that he should not hang up his phone.

Here, Jerico confronts the doctor and insists that he be provided with the pills for his extreme pain in the head.

Jerico tells the doctor that Bill’s memories are traumatizing him and that he needs relief from them. He reveals to the doctor that he can remember everything from Bill’s life, and his head is spinning and aching, and he should give him medication, otherwise he will hurt him too. The doctor assures Jerico of help and tells him to go to the pharmacy shop to get the medications.

Jerico has experience with a change in behavior

All this conversation is being heard by Quake, the CIA boss, through the uncut phone call with the doctor who sends his team to the spot. Here, Heimdahl also has access to Bill’s secret account, and he transfers files from Bill’s account into his computer.

Jerico, along with Dr. Frank, visits the pharmacy for the medicine, and Jerico gives money for the medicines and thanks the lady for providing the medicines. All this surprises Jerico, as he didn’t thank anyone ever before, which confuses him a lot. 

The doctor tells Jerico that Bill Pope’s personality is affecting his behavior, which Jerico agrees with too. Jerico is developing emotions and feelings which was never his trait.

As soon as Jerico leaves the Pharmacy, CIA agents grab him and take him in their car. Heimdahl’s girlfriend, Elsa, is watching all this from her car and follows them. Jerico is brought to the CIA office, and Quake asks Jerico about the whereabouts of The Dutchman.

Jerico says that he wants to go to the beach and suddenly tries to grab Quake. Quake tells him that if he takes them to the Dutchman, all the money that is in the bag and that Jerico is after can be his. Jerico is escorted to some destination in the car and accompanied by Quake.

Heimdahl tries to distract the CIA

Here, Heimdahl, who is a tech-savvy guy, manages to superimpose the picture of the hacker on some guy at the airport. This is to distract the CIA team, which he succeeds in doing. Quake Wells directs his team to send the convict Jerico home, as the Dutchman has already been tracked at the London Airport.

He, along with his team, parts ways with Jerico and sends his agent Lynch and one more agent, Ruizaa, with Jerico to drop him in a lone car.

Heimdahl alerts his girlfriend, Elsa, and tells her to trap them and catch Jerico alive. A shootout takes place, which results in the deaths of both agents and a few of Heimdal’s men.

Jerico manages to give them a slip, and while trying to flee from the spot, he grabs one of the cars and speeds away from the broken bridge and dives into the River Thames, along with the car.

Jerico manages to get out of the car, which is at the bottom of the sea. Here, Quake arrives at the accident spot on the bridge and tells his team member that the Russians can’t be allowed to go ahead with the deal with the hacker.

He orders new passcodes and new firewalls since their security has already been breached by Heimdahl. Here, Heimdahl is also angry with his girlfriend, Elsa, for her inability to catch Jerico, who could have helped track the hacker. But he cools down and tells Elsa that they need to find Jerico.

Jerico again returns to Bill Pope’s home and manages to get himself some first aid in the basement of the house. Jill hears the noise coming out of the basement and takes out a gun hidden in the house, and heads towards the basement.

Jerico seems to have changed

Jill points a gun at Jerico when she finds him medicating himself. But this time, Jerico seems to have mellowed down a little. He tells Jill about the memories that he is getting in his head after he has been induced by the memories of Bill.

Jerico tells her many incidents that only Bill Pope and his wife, Jill, would know. He tries to convince her that he has all of Bill’s memories coming back to him by narrating to her how their first car, a used Rover, smelled like fish.

How its clutch blew in the first week itself, and they had to get it fixed for 1100 quids. How they used to share the preparation of food. Jerico convinces her about how he has induced the memory of Bill and that the CIA is trying to use him to find the Dutchman.

Jerico assures Jill that he can’t hurt her, as Bill also didn’t hurt her ever. She leaves him there after Jerico tells her that he will leave after having finished his medication for his wounds.

Here, the hacker fires a warning missile and destroys it too, in mid-year, to showcase his complete command over the US defense system. After some time, Jill sees her daughter Emma with Jerico outside in their garden, where Jerico was helping her toy get buried. She realizes that Jerico will not hurt them, and so she tells Jerico to stay there only.

Jerico gets the idea of the bag

When Jill serves coffee to Jerico in the morning, he reads the name of the University on the cup, and it flashes in his mind that the bag is kept behind the bookshelf at the University of London. He quickly leaves, asking for the keys to the bookshelf-cage and the car.

As soon as Jerico leaves, Elsa breaks into the house and asks for Jerico’s whereabouts by pointing a gun at Jill. Jerico finds the bag in the University Library but is confronted by Heimdahl and Elsa, who overpower Jerico through an electric wire running current.

Quake learns in the office that the Russians have sent a team to bring the hacker, Yaan Strooks. He also directs his team to be ready to get the hacker first before the Russians.

Quake reaches out with his team to get the hacker and the Russians, too, to arrive on the spot. Jerico is being taken away by Heimdahl’s men. There is a gunfight between the CIA agents and the Russian agents. Jerico tells Heimdahl that neither the CIA nor the Russians actually has the hacker with them.

He reveals that the Dutchman is hiding in the library itself. Elsa tells Heimdahl to leave and let her take over. She and her men take Jerico towards the library to guide them in getting the hacker Strooks.

Jerico finds the Dutchman

While heading towards the library and passing through the Laboratory, Jerico manages to grab acid bottles, which he throws at Elsa and her men. There is a huge explosion in which Jerico escapes towards the place where the Dutchman is hiding. He finds the Dutchman and gives him the money.

Jerico enquires about the Wormhole program, to which the hacker, Yaan Strook, takes him to his computer. Jerico tells the hacker to do whatever he tells him; otherwise, he won’t get the money.

The Dutchman does the same and works with the drive. Soon, Elsa finds them and shoots Jerico in the shoulder and takes the drive containing the wormhole program in her custody.

After that, she shoots the hacker first in the leg and then in the head. As she is calling Heimdahl and informing him about the incidents in the library, Jerico hits her with a flower pot to neutralize her and then beats her up with a lamp to death.

An injured Jerico gets a hand on an ambulance, and while driving, he calls Heimdahl. Jerico tells him that he has killed Heimdahl’s girlfriend, and the drive is with him.

But before he says anything, Heimdahl reveals that he has both Emma and Jill in his custody. Heimdahl tells Jerico to come to his airfield and sends him the directions.

He tells Jerico to deliver the wormhole program drive to him; otherwise, he is going to kill both the daughter and the mother. Quake Wells establishes contact with Jerico and tells him not to deliver the drive to Heimdahl.

Jerico has to choose between his old self and Pope

Jerico replies that he has got this sorted out. This makes Quake more anxious, and he again tells him that he doesn’t have the thinking capacity of Bill Pope, and he should not hand over the drive to Heimdahl.

Doctor Frank also joins the telephone conversation and tells Jerico that he can freeze the implant in Jerico’s mind through an operation. Doctor Franks assures Jerico that he can be back to the normal self that he used to be in earlier days.

But now, Jerico probably doesn’t want to be the same old Jerico again. Quake Wells communicates to Jerico, through the radiophone, that he must forget about Emma and Jill and leave them there.

Quake tries to convince Jerico to deprive Heimdahl of the drive, containing the wormhole program, through which Heimdahl can wreak havoc on the world. He tells Jerico that Emma and Jill’s lives don’t matter, to which Jerico replies that ‘they do to me’, and heads towards Heimdahl.

Jerico fights with Haimdahl’s men

On reaching the airfield, he fights with Heimdahl’s men, but he is forcibly made to hand over the drive to Heimdahl since Heimdahl points a gun at Emma’s head. As soon as Heimdahl gets the drive, he shoots Jerico and wounds him grievously. He escapes on the plane and, from there, activates a missile and fires it at them.

Quake also reaches the spot, and he gets to know that Heimdahl has fired a missile at them, which will soon explode. Quake Wells shouts and scolds Jerico for giving Heimdahl the drive, containing the program.

Jerico replies that he made the hacker change the program of the wormhole in a way that whatever is fired from any place through that program will come back to hit the same place from which it is fired.

Heimdahl gets killed

And now, the missile that Heimdahl has fired changes its course and gets back at him, hitting the plane and blowing it to pieces.

In the ending scene, Jerico is seen at the same beach where he was in the beginning. Jill and Emma visit him with security, followed by Quake and the doctor. Jerico remembers them, and thus the doctor and Quake are convinced that the memory of Bill Pope has remained with Jerico.

Quake Wells tells Doctor Frank that he is going to offer Jerico a job, and the movie ends there.

Some of the FAQ’s from the movie ‘Criminal’