Violent Ends

“Without a single original idea, Violent Ends just doesn't hold up.”

Title: Violent Ends (2025)
Director: John-Michael Powell 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writer: John-Michael Powell 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

—MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3/5

Violent Ends is a by-the-books revenge thriller that soundly delivers on gritty Western-style ambience. Writer-director John-Michael Powell grew up in North Little Rock, near the Ozarks, where the film takes place, and it shows: Woodsy, remote locations dotted with ramshackle cabins are lovingly shot, and this hardboiled sense of place is the film’s most redeeming quality.

Unfortunately, the writing is ho-hum, beginning with its painfully familiar premise: A gruff main character—here it’s Lucas (Billy Magnussen)—experiences tragedy before going on a killing spree. Sure, Powell sprinkles in some family grudges, a little double-crossing funtime, but there’s no curiosity to the one-note characters. Without a single original idea, the film just doesn’t hold up.

Gender: 1.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

In its most tiresome trope, Violent Ends kills off a woman to jumpstart its story. Specifically, Lucas’ fiancée Emma (Alexandra Shipp) kicks the bucket so that Lucas can feel bad and shoot stuff. With the vast amounts of human emotions that exist in the world, why do so many male-directed movies have to murder a WAG or two so that their male protagonists can have feelings? There are other emotional threads to write about, folks.

Lucas’ mom, Darlene (Kate Burton), also has a supporting role as a police detective. But like so many women in positions of power on screen, she’s functionally useless. She spends the entirety of the film telling her son to be patient and let her do her job of finding justice for Emma’s murder. Her last line is “Lucas, no!” followed by crying, which pretty much sums up her character: She’s a voice of reason that her son fully ignores, and this makes her sad.

As for Lucas, the film seems to acknowledge the damaging effects of toxic masculinity. No one’s happy by the end of his murders, least of all Lucas. But the fixation on his descent into violence still glamorizes his ruthlessness and intelligence. As a viewer, you can’t help but feel satisfied when a victim walks into Lucas’ cleverly laid trap and promptly gets his head blown off. Sure, Violent Ends might tell us “killing is bad,” but it’s also whispering under its breath: “Doesn’t it look cool?”

Race: 1.5/5

The film is all white except for Emma, played by biracial Black and white actress Shipp. She’s portrayed in a glowing, idealized light and given several scenes. But she’s tokenized and killed off early so that a white family's in-fighting can begin.

Mediaversity Grade: D 2.00/5

Violent Ends is pretty to look at, underbaked narratively, and fully long-hair-don’t-care about killing off a Black woman for a white dude’s emotional journey.

Like Violent Ends? Try these other movies featuring deadly rampages.

*John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)*

Grade: DLiNovember 3, 2025