Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action,
horror, sci-fi film from 2019, titled Captive State. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In the nearby future, Earth is being invaded by aliens. Cities all over the world are losing power
and supplies while the governments are beginning to accept complying with the invaders is their
only chance to survive. In Chicago, the Drummond family is attempting to flee the city by car.
The father is a detective, so when a police officer stops them, he reminds him of the orders
they've received. But the father refuses to follow those orders, so he drives back and tries to find
a different escape route while saying they need to regroup and fight back. The road is suddenly
blocked by aliens, who vaporize both parents but leave the Drummond kids alive. Nine years later,
the world has submitted to the aliens' governance and they now are our Legislators.
Humans are conscripted to build "Closed Zones", underground habitats for the aliens with access
only granted to and by high government officials. The army has been demobilized,
and people are now obliged to help the aliens exploit Earth's natural resources. Everyone is
also implanted with an alien bug inside their necks so they can be tracked at all times.
The gap between the rich and the poor is greater than ever, police crackdowns have widespread,
deportations are now off-planet, and digital communication has been shut down.
Chicago has been walled off and is under martial law, so a resistance group called Phoenix has
tried to launch an attack on the closed zone, but they failed. However, they've not given up
on their mission yet. Unaware that he's being spied on by Commander William Mulligan, Gabriel
Drummond begins his daily routine after spending the night being intimate with his girlfriend Rula.
As he leaves his apartment, he meets with his friend Jurgis and together they rush out of the
neighborhood before some rats can tell on them or the alien drones that follow Gabriel from the sky
can see them do anything suspicious. Meanwhile, Mulligan is looking at the newspaper and finding a
seemingly normal ad that uses the Phoenix group's logo, which clearly upsets him. After circling it
with a red marker, he takes his car and visits a brothel with the same logo on its walls.
There he meets with Priscilla Scott, who gives him a box and tries to be intimate with him,
but he says he isn't able to do it so he can leave now that he has what he's come for.
He goes to the police headquarters, where he has a whole board of clues that say the Phoenix
resistance group has not been neutralized, contrary to what the public has been told.
Mulligan tells his partner Kermode that Phoenix has gone underground and is now communicating
through the classifieds, but Kermode remains skeptical and thinks Mulligan is chasing ghosts.
In an abandoned building, two members of Phoenix meet: Charles Rittenhouse and Patrick Ellison.
Charles shows Patrick the classified and tells him training is over and the team will go in tonight
as per Number One's orders. Afterward, Patrick meets with a masked informant to give him the
news, saying he trusts him. Gabriel arrives at his job in the Data Reclaim Center, where he must take
memory cards from phones, upload the information they have to the central system and then destroy
them. After noticing a coworker is stealing some of those cards, he takes a lunch break,
where he meets with a member of Phoenix that hands him a hand-rolled cigarette containing
secret information. When they're leaving work hours later, the woman that stole the cards is
found thanks to the bug in her neck and taken away by the special force. After seeing an alien ship
fly away above the sea, Gabriel meets with Jurgis inside an abandoned building, where they're hiding
a boat they can use to escape the city undetected. Jurgis has also acquired some guns, which angers
Gabriel because they could put them in some serious trouble. As they argue and fight over
the cigarette, they hear a police siren arrive, so Jurgis runs away and Gabriel tries to do the same
after hiding the gun, but Mulligan manages to find him anyway. He makes Gabriel enter his car and
gives him some food, mentioning his dad used to be his partner so he has a responsibility to that.
After failing to obtain information about Phoenix from him, he lets Gabriel go as he reminds him to
choose the right side. Afterward, Gabriel goes to see Raul Casillas to sell the cigarette,
but instead, he's thrown inside a van and put on a collar to block the tracker bug. Raul takes
Gabriel to Wicker Park, the area where Phoenix's first attack happened, and tells him to enter
an abandoned building. In there, his brother and Phoenix member Rafael Drummond is waiting for him,
because he isn't dead as the news said. He has removed his bug and is living off the grid now,
allowing him to continue working on Phoenix's plans with more freedom. He gives Gabriel
money in exchange for the cigarette and turns down the offer to escape together because he
wants to follow their dad's wish to regroup and fight back. After sending Gabriel away,
Rafael goes to another room and puts the cigarette paper on a carrier pigeon that flies away before
he burns every paperwork clue he had with him and shaves off his beard. Mulligan continues to spy on
Gabriel as he goes back to his apartment to gather his things and tell his girlfriend they need to
leave because there's going to be some trouble. Since Rula stays skeptical, he explains that he
saw his brother and there's a plan brewing, he also tells her about the boat - all this is heard
by Mulligan. Rule suspiciously insists on making him stay, so Gabriel decides to leave her behind
and escape on his own, but as soon as he makes it outside, Mulligan is waiting for him. This makes
Gabriel realize Rula has been helping the officer spy on him all along. Gabriel runs away and takes
narrow pathways or climbs roofs so that Mulligan must depend on the tracker to follow him. When
he enters an abandoned parking lot, the noise he makes wakes up a bunch of alien drones that start
chasing him, so Gabriel enters the guard booth and puts on the blocking collar Raul had given him.
This instantly causes the drones and Mulligan to lose his location. While Mulligan updates his
board at the station, Patrick receives the pigeon with the information and takes it to Ivan Leviev,
a hacker that uses this intel to access Chicago's surveillance system and the deployment patterns
of law enforcement units. Their target is Deputy Mayor Robert Watts, who will be assisting a Unity
Rally at Soldier Field that night. Now the plan is officially starting, Patrick gives
a kid a coin to call Charles and tell him to post one more ad in the newspaper. From there,
the message starts spreading to the people chosen to be the drivers during the mission.
The first driver, Michael Posner, sees the ad and shows it to a radio DJ that plays a special song,
which is heard on the radio by the second driver, Evan Hayes.
Evan takes out his dog for a walk and leaves it outside the garage belonging
to the third driver and Raul's coworker, Anita Hölderlin. The three drivers visit Harrison Ma,
a surgeon that removes the bugs from their bodies and puts them on rats that are released afterward.
After the procedures are done, Patrick visits morgue attendant Nelson Macauley, who gives him
bugs from deceased people and special plates for the drivers to keep the bugs inside their mouths.
Meanwhile, Rafael meets with priest Edward Gunn, and together they take the last church chalices to
a woman that accepts them in exchange for an alien explosive device she salvaged from a wrecked ship.
It can become invisible and is made of organic materials so scanners won't detect it, but first,
they need to fix it. Thankfully Patrick knows how, and he successfully gets it to work before
handing it to Rafael, who will be in charge of taking the explosive into the stadium. After
the drivers put the bug pallets in their mouths and everyone is given a suicide pill to swallow
in case of capture, the group leaves together with their last coordinator, drag queen Daniel Larkin.
When they make it to the stadium, Rafael, Edward, and Larkin get inside while Anita and Evan wait in
the parking lot. Patrick is at the office with Ivan, guiding them through the communicators,
and Mulligan is watching the whole show at home on tv. Mayor Watts gives his speech and leaves
the public singing the new hymn to meet the alien Legislators that are now arriving. He's
using a different exit from the one Phoenix has been waiting at, so Daniel rushes after him and
distracts him with chitchat to give Rafael time to arrive and put the explosive on Watts' shoulder.
When he finally comes closer to the Legislators, the bomb goes off. Patrick sees Watts' tracker
disappear from the screen and gives another coin to the kid so he can alert Michael to get ready.
Mulligan sees the broadcast has been suspended and opens the box Priscilla has given him,
finding a phone inside. At the stadium, people have started to run away in panic as more alien
ships and the police arrive. Edward is shot, but Daniel manages to escape with Anita. Rafael has
no choice but to escape on foot, but his path is blocked by one of the aliens, who chases him into
a parking lot. Rafael hides inside a car and dodges the alien's claws until Daniel arrives
and hits the creature with a fire extinguisher before removing the armor covering its face,
leaving it to die while he and Rafael get away in Anita's car. In the meantime, Gabriel has come
out of hiding to try to escape the city as well, but he finds Jurgis' boat has been lit on fire,
so he retrieves the gun he hid earlier and puts on the blocking collar before leaving. Mulligan meets
with Police Commissioner Eugene Igoe, who tells him to drop the case and let the aliens' off-world
hunters take care of it before boarding a special elevator to meet with the Legislators underground.
Afterward, he visits Priscilla to tell her he can't protect her anymore, but she replies
she has faith in him. They have one last dance together before he leaves. The special forces,
led by Mulligan, arrive at Phoenix's neighborhood and start raiding buildings. The residents throw
away any possible clues and hide where they can, but most of them are captured and asked about the
Drummond brothers. When Jurgis hits one of the officers, he's thrown on the ground to receive
a beating, so Gabriel shows up to defend him and gets caught as well. Meanwhile, Ivan is at
the subway station waiting for the train, but he gives in and calls his wife to tell her he's doing
this for the sake of their child. His wife passes the phone to Mulligan, who had been expecting his
call, and asks him to tell them where his friends are going. Rafael arrives at the bus station,
where he sees Daniel has already boarded a bus. Anita is having trouble getting inside in time
because of long waiting lines, so she cuts in to pick up a kid and help him pass through the
revolving door without arising suspicion. She and Rafael board a different bus from Daniel's and
they're both about to leave when suddenly power goes out, indicating the alien hunters are here.
As Mulligan arrives at the station as well, Daniel is captured by the hunters. Anita leaves her seat
to help him, but Rafael drags her back before the hunters can see her. She has no choice but to
watch how Daniel swallows his pill and dies on the floor of the station. Claiming this isn't over,
she decides to try again - she gets off her seat and jumps on the alien, who vaporizes her on the
spot. Rafael uses this distraction to jump on the hunter as well and he's thrown out of the bus,
where he gets ready to also swallow his pill, but Mulligan shoots him and captures him before
he can kill himself. At the precinct, Mulligan interrogates Gabriel, who asks for a lawyer.
Mulligan points out those days are behind them and that he didn't need a warrant to burn the boat
either. Gabriel still refuses to work for him, so to convince him, Mulligan takes him to see Rafael,
who has been chained up and beaten. He asks Gabriel not to accept to work for Mulligan
because he's already dead anyway, but Mulligan promises Gabriel that he'll make sure Rafael
stay alive if he accepts the job, so Gabriel does. Now that the police roundups are over,
Gabriel is Mulligan's only connection to Phoenix, so his job will be to deliver a message to them.
Gabriel is given the newspaper ad Mulligan had circled with a red marker earlier and is told to
take it to the place he'd usually visit when making deliveries. Gabriel goes to see Raul,
and the police track his bug while he's taken away in the same van as last time,
watching the city descending into chaos on the way. Raul drops Gabriel at Patrick's office and is
threatened by the kid with a gun, but mentioning Rafael gets him out of it. Patrick is skeptical of
his presence, but he accepts to help when he sees the newspaper clip and takes him to see Charles in
the same abandoned building. Charles recognizes Gabriel as a student he used to have and accepts
to take him to see Number One, since they're supposed to carry their orders until the very end.
Charles takes Gabriel to Priscilla's brothel, and as soon as he steps inside, the police go
after him. When Gabriel makes it to Priscilla's room, he's surprised to hear she knows his name,
but there isn't time to talk: the cops break into the room and shoot Priscilla on the spot.
As Gabriel leaves the building, Mulligan and Kermode arrive at the crime scene,
and Mulligan lies when Kermode asks him if he knows this place, saying he doesn't.
While Mulligan covers Priscilla with a blanket, Kermode notices various details that don't make
sense: her gun was empty, and she kept history books in a room used just for paid intimacy.
When Mulligan points out there is only one picture on the wall, Kermode removes it and finds a
microphone with a wire that he starts ripping off the wallpaper and following it until he finds a
hidden room behind a closet. Inside, there is a computer, a recorder, and a pile of cassettes.
The set-up belonged to Number One aka Priscilla, not the police. A couple of hours later, Mulligan
reports to the governors and the Legislators, who will be asking him questions through interpreters
that are connected to the Closed Zone. He tells them all details behind the Phoenix
group that they found on the computer, proving a national network and detailing the names and jobs
of each member, whom Priscilla would send the information to after recording it in her room.
Charles was in charge of communications, Patrick worked on operations and used to be a marine,
Raul had materials and transport, Ivan was the one that hacked into the police's surveillance,
and Harrison was a medical student that developed the method to remove the bugs.
But now that they've disposed of their Number One, all these rebels have killed themselves
before they could be captured too, so Mulligan declares the Chicago network neutralized.
The aliens ask more about Priscilla. Mulligan tells them she used to be a teacher and she's
been off the grid for nine years, she became a prostitute in order to have access to intel.
She would groom politicians and convince them to divulge classified information, and Mulligan plays
a tape to prove it. There are many governors' voices in the recording, but most importantly,
Commissioner Igoe is there as well, passing information to the rebels unknowingly. Igoe
leaves the room in shame, and when Mulligan points out their chain of command had been compromised,
the aliens declare him acting commissioner and order him to go down to the Closed Zone.
Surprisingly, Rafael is allowed to live, but he's deported off-planet,
and Gabriel watches the alien ship take him away with clear hurt in his eyes.
Mulligan finds him and makes him get in the car, but when he points out Rafael is at least alive,
Gabriel says everything has been pointless because the plan failed.
However, Mulligan tells him perhaps the plan was to fail before and gives him the memory card of
the phone Priscilla had handed him in that little box before dismissing him. Gabriel sneaks the card
into his workplace by hiding it in his mouth and puts it in the machine to review its contents.
He finds a video of his baby shower, where his parents are spending time with most of the members
of Phoenix. Mulligan is there too, and he's introduced to a coworker of Gabriel's mom's, who
turns out to be Priscilla. The recording ends with Mulligan telling Gabriel taht he has a big family
and that the future is his, and Gabriel takes it as inspiration to carry the torch of Phoenix. But
first, he deletes the video instead of uploading it to the database and destroys the memory card.
The police throw Mulligan a party to congratulate him for his promotion, but he leaves early, not
being in the mood to celebrate. Moments later, he goes through the standard procedure to be admitted
into the Closed Zone. After being disinfected and given a mask, Mulligan enters the elevator
as the invisible substance of the powerful alien explosive envelops him, indicating he is part
of Phoenix and that the whole plan had failed on purpose so he could have access to the Legislators
and deliver a fatal blow right on their faces. The Closed Zone in Chicago is successfully destroyed,
and this inspires other resistance strikes and protests to break out in major cities
all over the world, because like Rafael had told Gabriel, if you light a match, you ignite a war.