A Matter of Details is a hit on Netflix: The ending is revealed

Since entering the Netflix catalog on December 2nd – and two years after its VOD release – the thriller A Matter of Details has quickly made its way into the platform’s top 10 movies.

With its sympathetic cast, the film follows Los Angeles police detectives Joe “Deke” Deacon (Denzel Washington) and Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek) as they search for a serial killer in a mode similar to an unsolved case from Deke’s past. which still haunts him.

A recent murder investigation leads them to Albert Sparma (Jared Leto), a most disturbing man who enjoys making fun of the police and their inability to solve cases. He is so vicious that he even confessed to a murder he could not have committed. At least, we believe so.

Finally, when Baxter is cornered, Spar says he will lead the inspector to the body of one of the victims. Baxter, of course, accepts, driving away in a deke car, leading to the film’s astonishing climax.

who is the killer

Spar leads Baxter to the desert where he believes one of his victims is buried. Yet the policeman digs again and again to find the body… nothing! He finds nothing. Meanwhile, Spar taunts Baxter, who is already at the bottom. He mocks his ability to protect his daughters, causing Baxter to break down and give him the fatal blow.

Deke arrives and immediately decides to cover up Sparma’s murder. Just then, the film flashed back five years and showed Deke accidentally shooting the missing young woman he came to rescue… an incident deemed complicit by the coroner.

But Deke doesn’t tell Baxter about it. He just tells her to forget about Spar or it will completely absorb her. At this time, Baxter does not listen and continues to search for the body in the desert, but digs in vain.

At the end of the movie, we see Baxter at home. He picks up a package containing a red hair clip worn by one of the victims in the case. We then see Deke burning all of Sparma’s belongings, including a new box of hairpins with Red missing. So we learn that Deke bought the hairpin and sent it to Baxter to make him believe that he did the “right thing” and now he can move on.

So when the credits roll, we’re not sure who the killer is. We don’t know if it was a spar or not. All we know is that Deke now wants Baxter to believe it was Spar, so he doesn’t have to suffer from this case – and his manslaughter – for the rest of his life.

What the director says

John Lee Hancock, the film’s director, is also ambiguous when questioned Entertainment Weekly At the end: “I can argue either way. He says, I have to work tomorrow, let’s go, which is an indication that nothing will happen there“.

He follows: “If he had taken her to find the body, she definitely wouldn’t have gone to work the next day. Or is he lying?“

John Lee Hancock explains that Jared Leto came to his own conclusion but never shared his decision: “He asked me: what do you think? And I said, “I don’t know.” I said “I don’t know and that’s not what the movie is about”“.

“Either he is guilty and the crime will stop, or he is not and the crime can continue. So it’s a thankless ending, no matter how you look at it, everything is gray.“

He follows: “He said to me, “I think I have to make a decision about that.” I told him that I understand perfectly well, but I shouldn’t have said it. So he made a decision for himself and we were there to support him.“

Seen by Denzel Washington, Jared Leto and John Lee Hancock: