THE PROTEGE

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

1991, Da Nang, Vietnam – An assassin named Moody Dutton (Samuel L. Jackson) enters a building where several insurgents lay dead. Moody steals their money until he hears a noise. He opens a closet door to find a young girl covered in blood and aiming a gun at him. Moody disarms the girl, but she has another gun as back-up. He shows that he is harmless, and he takes the girl with her.

30 years later in Bucharest, a mobster named Vali (George Pistereanu) is kidnapped and held for ransom. The girl from the beginning, now an adult woman named Anna (Maggie Q), brings Vali to meet his goons to collect the ransom. Anna is taken by the goons to Vali’s father, mob boss Don Preda (Velizar Binev). He threatens Anna with retaliation, but she says she never wanted money, and Don Preda was always the target. Anna stabs him in the neck and kills his two other guards before escaping. As she exits, the other guards are shot at by a sniper.

Anna lives with Moody and a housekeeper, Claudia (Caroline Loncq). where they attempt to celebrate his birthday but he would rather play with his new toy drone. Moody has raised Anna like a daughter, and they bond over the evening. As they discuss the business they are involved in, Moody mentions that he has been looking for one particular target since 1998. Anna goes to a dry cleaner owner, Benny (Gamba Cole), to try and find any info on Moody’s guy.

Anna works at a book store, and she is visited by a man named Rembrandt (Michael Keaton). He asks for a specific rare book and also appears to flirt with Anna, who seems somewhat receptive. Later, Anna runs through the park, where Benny gives her info on the target, Lucas Hayes (Dimitar Nikolov), who turned up in Da Nang around the time that Moody found Anna.

When Anna returns home, she finds Claudia dead and then goes upstairs to find what looks like Moody dead in the bathtub. She contacts Benny for help, only to go to the dry cleaner and find that someone killed Benny by frying his whole body in a steam presser. Anna goes to the book store to get guns, and some assassins begin to open fire on her through the windows, but she manages to duck and avoid gunfire. Anna manages to kill the assassins and steal their car.

Anna goes to a library to do research on Lucas Hayes, learning that his father, Edward (David Rintoul), was involved in some shady business and was apparently killed by a car bomb in Da Nang at the same time that Moody was there.

Anna reluctantly returns to Da Nang to get more answers. She encounters an old friend, Billy Boy (Robert Patrick), who helps her get close to Edward’s old business partner Jossino Vohl (Patrick Malahide). She manages to get Vohl to meet with her along with his lawyer Duquet (Ray Fearon). Before Vohl can tell Anna what she wants to know regarding Edward or Lucas, Duquet shoots Vohl in the head. More gunmen show up but Anna slashes Duquet’s face and climbs up into the vents to get away. She manages to exit the building but is still hit by a car and taken captive by Duquet and the other men.

The villains bring Anna into their custody to interrogate her. She is tortured and held captive for a while until Rembrandt shows up to reveal his involvement in this. He and Duquet work for the same person, but he was never going to the same lengths as Duquet to get to Anna. The thugs later come in to rough Anna up some more, but she gains the upper hand and kills all of them before making her escape. She makes it to Billy’s hideout for protection.

Billy helps Anna track down the hospital where Lucas was admitted. She speaks to a nun working there and finds Lucas, who is an adult and doesn’t really move or speak. Rembrandt learns that Anna went to the hospital and arranges for a dinner with her, and it is revealed that his boss is a very much alive Edward. Anna later meets Rembrandt for dinner where he tries to get her to back off of Edward’s work, but she makes it clear that this mission is personal to her. After they split, Rembrandt comes across thugs hired by Duquet, but he subdues all of them. Anna finds Duquet herself and hangs him. Rembrandt finds him, and Anna attempts to kill him too, but they end up having sex. Despite this, she tells Rembrandt she is still completing her mission.

On her way out, Anna is attacked by one of Edward’s thugs, but the gunman is killed by another gunman…who happens to be a very much alive Moody. He takes Anna away and reveals he faked his death using one of the unlucky hitmen as a decoy by blowing his face off and convincing the authorities that it was him. He and Anna meet up with Billy again as they plot their ultimate takedown of Edward and Rembrandt.

Edward holds a banquet with extra tight security. Anna infiltrates the party in disguise as a waitress. As Edward gives a speech, she makes her attempt to assassinate him but is thwarted by Rembrandt. As the party goes into chaos, Anna runs but is shot in the arm by Rembrandt. Moody manages to find Edward and confronts him for all his crimes. Edward says he faked his death to protect Lucas, but Moody has no sympathy for him. Just as Rembrandt corners Anna, Moody sets off a bomb to blow up himself and Edward. Anna gets away from Rembrandt.

A flashback shows the night where Anna watched as insurgents beheaded her mother and then shot her sisters and father. They took Anna to their hideout, where the leader of the men assembled a pistol in front of her, and she memorizes the steps. After the man leaves, Anna assembles a second pistol and proceeds to kill all the men before Moody eventually finds her.

Rembrandt finds Anna in a building where they draw their guns on each other. Cut to outside where two gunshots are heard. Anna then exits the building.

In 1991, an assassin named Moody Dutton rescues a young girl in Da Nang whose family was murdered by insurgents. He raises the girl, Anna, to become an assassin like him. In the present day, Moody is seemingly murdered by people working for a man named Edward Hayes, whom Moody had been targeting. Edward was originally believed to have been killed in a car bomb, but has now resurfaced to continue his shady business dealings.

Anna must return to Da Nang and learns of Moody's connection to Edward and his son Lucas. Edward's henchman, Rembrandt, pursues Anna but less extremely than another henchman, Duquet, who tries to torture Anna multiple times until she eventually kills him. Moody also turns out to have faked his death and helps Anna catch up to Edward.

Edward holds a banquet which Anna and Moody crash. Anna stages a chaotic diversion to make it look like she was targeting Edward, but it was just to buy Moody time to confront Edward himself. He uses a bomb to blow up himself and Edward while Rembrandt goes after Anna. They have a standoff where only Anna walks out alive.