Anyone get the ending?
Please explain if they do. The movie was entertaining but I'm lost at the end.
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MovieChat Forums > The Oak Room (2021) Discussion > Anyone get the ending?
When Steve first walks into the bar, Paul the bartender calls up some guy named Stelli to come to the bar. Through the rest of the movie, we see a car driving through the snowstorm, and assume it is Stelli. But the driver is revealed to be Michael when we see his gold watch on the driver's wrist right at the end.
Michael arrived at the bar to kill Paul. We know this from Paul's reaction to hearing Jimmy Thompson's name. He clearly knows and fears Jimmy Thompson, and is aware of his own approaching death. As for why Jimmy wants him dead, there's a tiny clue. Right before Michael kills Ken the Oak Room bartender (who he mistakenly identifies as Paul), he calls him a "fucking rat". So maybe Jimmy is a gang lord and Paul ratted him to the police? Anyway, that's really not what the movie is about, so the audience are left to fill in the blanks with their own theories.
The movie, just like Steve's story, tells us the ending before the beginning. The first scene of the movie is the end of the story - 2 men brawling behind the bar counter, as a bottle of Elk Lake Ale sits on the countertop. In the last scene of the movie, we see Steve place a bottle of Elk Lake Ale on a countertop in a bar. It's the same bar in both scenes as the background elements are identical - same overhead lampshade, fridge with polaroids, cash machine. The end of the story that we're shown at the beginning is Michael and Paul fighting, and one of them overpowering the other. Most likely Michael killing Paul, though the movie doesn't explicitly say this. But if Michael could easily kill the big guy from earlier, then an old man like Paul wouldn't be much trouble.
The only loose end here is Steve. What's his role in all this? Well, the movie gives an EXTREMELY subtle hint here, that I caught only by accident. Right when the car pulls up outside, Paul immediately reaches for something on the counter, and is very distressed to find it missing. I didn't know what he was reaching for, so I rewatched the movie from the start.
When Steve first enters the bar in a mask, Paul almost attacks him with a baseball bat. On recognizing Steve, he puts the bat on the counter, and they make conversation for the next 5 minutes. Then Paul goes into the backroom to fetch the dad's ashes, leaving Steve completely alone in the bar. As Paul exits, the bat is still seen on the counter, but you have to look for it to spot it. The scene then cuts away to the driver in the snowstorm. When we come back to the bar, Steve is still alone and waiting, but the baseball bat is nowhere to be seen! We then see Steve try to suppress a smile, before Paul returns. This is the baseball bat that Paul looks to arm himself with when Michael shows up.
Clearly, Steve was running recon on Paul for Michael/Jimmy. He deliberately wears a mask to enter the bar, tricking Paul into defense mode. Once Paul's defense was exposed, Steve quietly neutralized it, making Michael's job easy.
Steve's motive? He held Paul responsible for his dad's death ("It was the bottle that killed him, and we both know who is responsible for that") and maybe he wanted revenge. Or maybe he wanted to be free of his debt to Paul and Stelly. This part of the movie is a little weak and unsatisfying, since Paul is really nice to Steve considering the circumstances, and helped out with the funeral and everything. So I don't know why Steve would want Paul dead.
Another loose end:
what was under the tarp in the basement? And why was the basement door open?
And why did Michael have Richards keys in his ignition?
I dont know why this explanation isn't anywhere else (maybe bc its wrong), but this is what I thought: Steve and Michael are the same person.
Richard's keys are in the ignition bc he stole Richard's car after he killed him. Steve's dad talks about having the shop for 28 years- what did he do before that aside coming from nothing? Steve and Michael look a lot alike and when Steve makes all the weird faces and acts weirdly violent in the bathroom, I assumed it was his Michael side coming out. Also, Paul first started getting alarmed when the Steve said the witness was the town drunk from Paul's story. Here is it where we see Steve is goosing the details in his story. He also showed Paul the coaster from the Oak Room to show he was there, but said that police had the place all blocked off. [So somehow he was there and learned of this story, how else if he wasn't actually Michael. Paul also becomes visibly afraid of Steve at this point.] Steve's dad also talked about in his story being so upset about Steve running with scary people. Steve knew Paul didn't actually call Sully because he is likely friends with Sully and knew that wouldn't be the reaction if Paul called him. Thompson is also likely another friend of Steve's. This also explains why Paul handed over the ashes; he realized Steve was going to kill him and maybe the only way out of it was to give him what he wanted.
Not sure if anyone else caught the details with the watch. Toward the end of the movie, you see Steve staring at Paul's gold watch that looks exactly like his father's gold watch at the pig farm. My guess is that this is supposed to be another detail that links Steve and Michael to being to same person.
Meaning that Steve kills Paul and takes the watch back. You see it on the driver because it is actually him driving away. The timing of all of these stories are all of time order, and the main story of the movie itself is no different
Alright. This movie is good but, it has a few flaws that are brushed off as ‘that’s not what the movie is about’ or ‘we don’t need to know that’ which make this movie, in my opinion, a good but not great movie.
So, Steve cannot be the killer. Of course we could argue that forever but, if you want to believe in the stories said in the movie, he cannot be it for one simple reason : why would Steve go to the wrong bar to kill the wrong bartender?
However, Steve is in it with the killer. This is easily deduced by the fact that, when Paul goes downstairs to get the tackle box, Steve makes sure the baseball bat disappears.
So, we know that Steve hang out with the wrong crowd, according to Paul’s story about his dad. We know Steve owes Paul and another dude a lot of money - we do not know why. We know Paul is not going to give Steve the tackle box until he gets his money back. So we can assume Steve went to the bar to get the urn without paying Paul. How is he going to do that? He is gonna pay Paul with a story. A story that in the end turns out to be a proportionate payment as Paul, in the end, hands him the urn.
However you play the stories in the movie they do not make sense which leads me to think that none of that happened. The whole story about the decapitated bartender was just a made up story Steve told Paul to show Paul that he knew something about him that was worth more than the debt he owed him. Steve knew Paul ratted out a dangerous person and by telling Paul, he gets his urn.
We also know that most likely Paul dies because, in the beginning, we see two men fighting behind a bottle of beer and we can safely assume that one is the killer and the other one is Paul.
Why would Steve want Paul dead beats me. He cannot think Paul was responsible for his dad’s alcoholism, that would be like blaming Toyota for a deadly car crash. I think that Steve just sold Paul out as it was a way for him to get his stuff from him and get rid of his debts.
So what I think happened is this:
Paul was in the Oak Room (that’s why he has a coaster from it) and met or overheard drunk Thomas Coward talk about Paul and probably disclose some info he shouldn’t have disclosed. Steve then reach out to his ‘wrong crowd’ to tell them he found who ratted Jimmy Thompson out. The coaster he brings with him, just like the ring Paul wears, has nothing to do with the story of how he got it. That’s how you ‘goose the truth’. Steve made up that story to buy time so that the killer could get to Paul’s open bar (past business hours) finding him disarmed and deliver Jimmy Thompson’s message. Steve sold Paul out to get rid of his debt and retrieve his father’s ashes. That is the only logical theory I can come up with.
What about Stelli. Well, Stelli just like Richard, will arrive at the bar to find another man behind it instead of Paul and will most likely suffer the same faith of Richard. Steve gets around paying another of his debts.