Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a crime, drama,
thriller film from 2016, titled At the End of the Tunnel. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
Joaquín is a paraplegic computer engineer that lives alone in his old, big house that keeps the
haunting memories of the wife and daughter he lost in the car accident that took his ability to walk.
His only company is his elderly dog, Casimiro, who hasn't been able to walk in a while.
When Joaquín calls the vet to ask about the results of his tests, he's told there isn't
anything they can do about it. So Joaquín searches the internet for painless ways to put down a dog,
buys the corresponding narcotic, injects it inside some biscuits, and puts them away in a jar for
when the time comes. One afternoon, a woman named Berta and her young daughter Betty, who can speak
but won't, show up at his door, asking about the room he's renting on the terrace. They saw the ad
and came without calling first, which bothers Joaquín a lot. Betty tries to pet Casimiro,
who growls at her, as Joaquín warns her not to do it because he doesn't like strangers.
He only gets more annoyed when Berta decides to move in right now, but since he needs the money
because the house will be confiscated soon, he doesn't complain much. Joaquín is very antisocial,
so he doesn't like it when Berta tries to spend time with him on the first floor and even tries
to help him by cleaning and tidying up. But Berta doesn't give up, she keeps trying to talk to him
and know him better, even if he won't answer her questions. She shares a bit about herself,
telling him she's a properly trained dancer that came to the big city looking for success
but ended up dancing against poles. When she asks him why he won't sell the house to pay his debts,
he refuses to answer, but it's quite obvious that it holds important memories to him.
Berta also plays music too loudly, and Betty has the habit of hiding in random spots around
the house, but no matter how annoying they can be at times, both of them start growing on Joaquín,
especially when they make him a special birthday dinner. Betty also manages to befriend Casimiro,
who not only stops growling at her, he even stands up and moves towards the kid,
allowing her to hug him. Witnessing this makes Joaquín cry, although he waits until he's alone
to do so. Joaquín spends a lot of time in the basement, where he works with computers.
One day, he starts hearing weird noises coming from the neighbor's house,
so he puts a stethoscope on the wall to hear them better. It appears there is a group of
men on the other side who are paying attention to his movements and noises too, and they even
know he's in a wheelchair. They decide they will come back later when nobody can hear them,
so Joaquín tapes the stethoscope to the wall and connects it to his computer so everything they say
will be recorded while he goes upstairs to have dinner with the girls. The following morning,
Joaquín listens to the recording and takes note of the names he hears, but he can't quite understand
what they are doing down there except for the fact they're moving some pieces of wood around.
Needing some context, he makes a small hole on the wall with a screwdriver and inserts a tiny
camera that also connects to his computer, and covers it with an old pc cabinet. Afterward,
he tries to kick Berta and Betty out for their safety but doesn't tell them why, and Berta gets
quite angry because they've signed a contract. She accuses him of being afraid of letting other
people close to him and trusting them, so she gives him until the next morning to change his
mind. The following day, Joaquín tells them they can stay. When he goes back to the basement,
he begins watching the recording and taking notes. The men seem to only work at night, and they're
digging some kind of hole that should be done for Christmas' eve, there's also some talk about an
explosive. The most shocking discovery however, is to see Berta arrive as well. She cross to the
other side through the roofs so he couldn't see her, and not only she knows these men, she's in
a relationship with their leader, Galereto. She's rented the room on purpose to keep an eye on him,
and Galereto scolds her for having crossed over since she could've been discovered. After
giving her a special key, he sends her away and reminds her to only speak to him through texts.
Later that night, Betty comes to Joaquín's room in her underwear to watch him sleep for a few
seconds before leaving. Joaquín continues to watch the recordings and when he sees the men examining
a blueprint, he finally understands what they're doing: they're digging a tunnel to rob the bank at
the end of the block. While Berta is away at the market, Joaquín tries to befriend Betty by taking
interest in her drawings, but she ignores him. However, he does discover something important:
Betty talks to Casimiro, so Joaquín hides a microphone behind his collar.
Joaquín learns that the men's plan is to put the money on a little cart on wheels that they'll push
and pull along the tunnel. While discussing this option, Galereto discovers one of his men, Muñeco,
has been texting inside the house and sent someone the bank address.
This makes Galereto angry, so while one of the thugs goes in search of Muñeco, Galereto
scolds Zurdo, his Spaniard accomplice, for having brought such a useless idiot into the plan.
Muñeco is brought to the basement and punched twice before they tie him to the table,
where he begins crying and explaining he just wanted to see a girl he likes while he was on his
break but he hasn't told her anything. This isn't enough for Galereto, who scolds him for putting
the operation at risk before stabbing him with a screwdriver and hitting his head with a hammer.
Joaquín watches all this with a phone in his hand, wondering if he should call the police or not,
but he doesn't dare. Galereto's brother, Canario, wonders what they should do with the body,
and Galereto tells him the corrupt cop that is helping them with this plan will take care of it.
Later, after recovering the microphone from Casimiro's collar, Joaquín puts a sedative in
Berta's wine and ties her to his bed, then he takes her phone and sets up an alarm for when
he needs to sedate her again. Afterward, he keeps watching the recordings, where he learns that the
thieves have received information from the cop they're working with: they've been told that
they mustn't touch safes 747 and 748 because they belong to very important dealers. A new person
also arrives with the explosive they'll use to enter the bank: it's a woman, René, who will have
to take over Muñeco's place. When Berta wakes up, Joaquín feeds her and asks her why she's going out
with such a douche, but Berta says he isn't a bad guy - he may be a thief but he won't hurt anybody.
To get her to cooperate, Joaquín brings his laptop and shows her what they did to Muñeco.
While she watches how horrible her boyfriend truly is, Joaquín goes to see Betty and after teaching
her she mustn't be scared of him, he allows her to take his daughter's old room and take Casimiro
with her. Then, Joaquín begins working on a plan to take some money from the thieves. He thinks he
can dig a hole on his floor right above their tunnel and simply lean in and take some money
from their little cart when it's passing by. When he tells Berta about this idea while massaging her
limbs, Berta tells him he'll get caught and killed, but he trusts his idea and puts her
to sleep again after stealing her necklace where she keeps the key Galereto gave her.
Joaquín goes back to watching the thieves work and hears them curse when they find a water pipe in
the tunnel, which means they've been digging in the wrong direction. They can fix it, but it'll
take them one more day, so they'll get there on actual Christmas instead of Christmas' eve,
which isn't ideal because fireworks in Argentina are usually thrown on the night of the 24th,
but hopefully people will still be busy celebrating to notice anything.
The real bad news for Joaquín is the fact they change the little cart for a cat carrier because
it is bigger, sturdier, and if it is knocked over things won't fall off it, which means he won't be
able to rob it as it passes because it's not open on the top like the little cart. There's no other
choice, Joaquín changes his plans. He finishes opening the hole on the floor and he goes down
to cover the lid he made for it with dirt and seal it properly so it isn't noticed. He also examines
the pipe and takes its measurements, making sure water is still running through it. However,
when he tries to go back, he sees Galereto and Canario coming down the tunnel, so he hurries
to hide in the abandoned area while hearing them talk about a safe house only the two of them and
Zurdo know about. Canario isn't very happy about Zurdo knowing too because he doesn't trust him,
especially after what happened with Muñeco. After the two men leave, Joaquín returns to the house
just in time to sedate Berta again, but Betty is nowhere to be seen. After finding Casimiro alone,
Joaquín realizes what has happened: Betty has gone down the hole. Joaquín checks
the camera and sees his suspicion is true, she is in the other house snooping around.
At that moment, the men return to the basement, but luckily Betty knows she needs to hide.
While Zurdo looks for his watch, which he is sure he left there and now he can't find, one
more person joins them: it's Guttman, the corrupt cop that is helping them with this operation.
He's brought them a list of all the saves that must be avoided because they're connected to the
alarms, and he promises to send police cars to patrol anywhere but that neighborhood.
In exchange, Galereto must recover the papers from safe 155, which someone is using to blackmail
Guttman. After they leave, Betty runs back into the house, and Joaquín helps her climb back up,
discovering she's the one that took Zurdo's watch. Afterward, Joaquín notices that Galereto is
calling Berta instead of texting her, and he needs her to pick it up so he doesn't get suspicious.
Since she still refuses to cooperate, Joaquín brings his computer again and after pointing out
Betty stopped talking two years ago which is also when she met Galereto, he plays the recording from
Casimiro's collar, where Betty is telling him how Galereto touched her in secret. Joaquín tells her
he has a plan to ruin his operation by filling his tunnel with water, and Berta, who is incredibly
upset about his daughter, finally accepts to help. When the phone rings again, she picks it up and
tells Galereto that everything is fine and Joaquín almost never goes down the basement these days.
After she hangs up, Joaquín sedates her again. During Christmas Eve, Joaquín and Betty watch
the fireworks together while the thieves install the explosive. They'll be taking a break and go
in at eight am, so after locking Betty up in her room, Joaquín takes advantage of that break to go
down there and move the explosive to put it on the water pipe. Next, he goes to the end of the tunnel
and opens a hole that takes him to the bank, where he picks the lock of one of the forbidden saves,
748, and takes some money in a bag before leaving, not noticing he hasn't closed the safe all the
way. On his way back, he sees René checking out the tunnel. He thinks he can hide the same way
he did last time, but they're about to activate the fan that will clear the air in the tunnel,
so he must rush back into the bank not to get asphyxiated. After that is over, luckily for
Joaquín, their preparations take long enough for him to go back down and return to his house in
time before they notice him. They detonate the explosive and the water starts leaking off the
pipe, but they can't tell because they find the hole Joaquín dug and think the explosion made it.
René enters the bank with two of Galereto's workers, Pichi and Schwarzenegger, and all
three of them quickly start emptying the saves according to the numbers Guttman had assigned
them. They discover 748 has been opened already, but they don't have time to think about it because
at that moment they discover the water is starting to fill the tunnel. Galereto, Canario and Zurdo
see this as well but instead of helping, they grab the money they already have and run away.
Pichi and Schwarzenegger try to escape as well but the tunnel is already half full, so they go back
into the bank and open one of the connected saves to activate the alarm so the police can find them
before they drown. But René, who has tried to cross the tunnel as soon as she saw the water,
doesn't make it to the other side in time and gets stuck in the middle. Hearing her cries for help,
Joaquín opens the hole and tries to help her, but as soon as she sees him, she starts yelling
and warning the others about the neighbor as she tries to pull him down with her, so Joaquín lets
go of her and closes the hole again, leaving her to drown. The pipe finishes breaking and
water soon starts flooding the bank and Joaquín's basement. He takes off the hole lid and washes the
dirt off so it doesn't look suspicious, then he pulls a rope he had prepared earlier to make a
bunch of old computer cabinets fall on top of it as he leaves the basement with his bag of money.
As power goes out on the whole block, he checks on Berta, who attacks him and pins him to the bed,
demanding to know why he didn't trust her. Joaquín kisses her and tells her he has the money, so the
three of them could escape together, but Berta doesn't accept this. She grabs the syringe to try
to sedate him, so Joaquín has no other choice but hit her to knock her out. After injecting her the
sedative, he washes the dirt off his body and goes outside to talk to the police, pretending to be an
innocent neighbor that is worried about the water in his basement, and he's told to wait inside.
Guttman is nearby overseeing all this and he calls Galereto to know what happened, but he
doesn't understand either. Guttman hangs up on him when he hears they couldn't retrieve his papers.
Moments later, Guttman takes a group of cops with him to search Joaquín's house, and he allows them
in, still pretending to be an innocent citizen that only wants the system to do something about
all the flood damage. He had already let Betty out and made her stay with Berta in his room so
he could pretend they are his wife and daughter. The basement floor has sunk, so the cops can't
find the hole he dug there and they accept there's nothing weird in his house. Galereto keeps trying
to call Berta's phone, which is in Joaquín's hand and is ignored, but when Guttman is on his way
out of the house, he takes the phone thinking it's Joaquín's and saves his number, asking him to give
him a call if he remembers anything that could help the investigation. Just a few moments later,
Galereto, together with Zurdo and Canario, come to the house too, pretending to be cops. Not wanting
to raise suspicion, Joaquín allows them inside as he sends Guttman a text asking him to come over.
At the same time, Guttman is calling Galereto to yell at him for having opened safe 748,
but Galereto hangs up on him without a care before interrogating Joaquín.
He tells him all he knows is that his basement got flooded when some thieves tried to rob the
bank and that he lives alone because the woman that was renting his room left yesterday, but at
that moment, Betty comes out of the room, blowing his story. Galereto takes out his gun and after
checking on Berta, who is still sedated, he picks up Betty and tries to interrogate Joaquín again.
He still plays innocent and makes up more lies that end up contradicting each other,
so Galereto pushes him off his chair and onto the floor. Canario starts hitting him and kicking him,
trying to get him to confess, and he's only saved by Berta's phone suddenly ringing.
Galereto finds it and picks up the call only to discover it's Guttman, telling who he thinks it's
Joaquín that he's at the door. Freaking out at this turn of events, Galereto lets Guttman inside
and demands to know why he has Berta's number as Canario ties him up. Guttman doesn't know
what's going either, so Galereto gets ready to shoot Joaquín, and that finally makes him talk.
What he says however, is another lie, but one more convincing this time: he asks Zurdo to help him,
pretending to know him. Using all the information he heard while spying on them, he tells Galereto
that Zurdo would come to his house by crossing the roofs to beat up and sedate Berta.
He was the one that told Joaquín about the robbery and told him to open a hole on the floor to take
some money that they would later divide among the three of them. Zurdo calls him a liar, so to prove
his made-up story, Joaquín mentions the safehouse only Galereto, Zurdo and Canario knew about,
and tells them to open a nearby cupboard, where they find Zurdo's watch, which Joaquín claims he
forgot there. Finding himself cornered, Zurdo shoots Canario, who also shoots in return and
they both kill each other at the same time. While Galereto cries over the body of his brother, Berta
wakes up and grabs a dropped gun, which she uses to kill Galereto for what he did to her daughter.
Guttman escapes the flimsy rope they had tied him with and offers his help. He puts the bodies
in the trunk of his car and gives Joaquín some tips on how to clean the blood off the floor
before asking him for the money he stole. Joaquín refuses to give it to him and shows him he has a
recording of him working with the thieves, which could get him in trouble. Guttman laughs at this
and while he grabs and eats Casimiro's biscuits from the jar thinking they're normal cookies,
he threatens Berta with his own gun. Joaquín has no other choice but to let him go with the money.
While he's driving away, Casimiro's narcotics begin taking effect and Guttman gets dizzy,
which causes him to crash his car and start a fire, so he decides to just lay down on the ground
and wait for death or the police to take him. Many days later, Joaquín's house has been cleaned
and emptied, and he's ready to leave it behind to start a new life with Berta, Betty, and Casimiro.