Follow TV Tropes

Following

Film / The Suicide Theory

Go To

Steve has a problem. As a hit man, it is his job to kill people. He enjoys his job, and it allows him to escape the memories of his dead wife. However, his latest target is proving to be harder to kill than most.

Percival has a problem. He desperately wants to die, and has survived numerous suicide attempts, leading him to the conclusion that is cursed with immortality. He hires Steve after a happenstance meeting and orders a hit on himself.

This proves easier said than done, though not from lack of trying...

The Suicide Theory is a 2014 thriller film directed by Dru Brown and starring Steve Mouzakis and Leon Cain. It premiered at the Dances with Films festival in Los Angeles in 2014, and was formally released in the United States and Canada in 2015.


This film contains examples of:

  • Arc Words: "You're lucky to be alive."
  • Asshole Victim: The homophobes.
  • Blessed with Suck: Percival cannot die... no matter how much he wants to.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Steve uses a number of these throughout the movie, like when he takes out the gay-bashers that attacked Percival. Percival, meanwhile, survives three shots to the head with nothing worse than a missing eye.
  • Bring It: When the homophobes threaten to kill Percival, his response is to break into hysterical laughter and tell them to go right ahead.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The man that Steve beats to death with a pint of ice cream in the opening scene is revealed at the very end to have been Percival's lover Christopher.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Several of these in a row prove to Percival that his fate and Steve's are intertwined. In brief: Steve randomly kills Percival's lover Christopher, sending Percival into a deep depression. After a night of drinking, Percival is driving home when he hits and kills Steve's wife Annie, and then drives off, sending Steve on a mission to kill the man responsible for Annie's death. During one of Percival's suicide attempts, he lands on the cab Steve is riding in, inspiring him to hire Steve to kill him, which even Steve cannot do until, over the course of the story, they both discover that Percival is responsible for Annie's death and Steve forgives (and subsequently successfully kills) Percival. So it seems that Percival was exactly right.
  • Creepy Crossdresser: Steve unwinds by putting on his wife's black evening gown and red lipstick.
  • Crusading Widow: Steve spends most of the movie hunting for the person who killed his wife in a hit-and-run.
  • Cultured Badass: Steven is a big fan of opera and Voltaire.
  • Curse: What Percival believes has happened to him as punishment for accidentally killing Annie. With all the Contrived Coincidence s and failed suicide attempts, it's not hard to see where he's coming from.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Steve tries to convince Percival of this.
  • Death Seeker / I Cannot Self-Terminate: Percival.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Steve's response to having his conversation interrupted? Following the guy out and beating him to death.
  • Double Tap: Steve's usual technique when taking out a target.
  • Driven to Suicide: Percival, after Christopher's murder, though he keeps surviving.
  • Establishing Character Moment: In Steve's first scene, he is interrupted during a conversation in a convenience store. In response, he follows the guy and beats him to death with the pint of ice cream he just bought for his wife.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Steve aborts a hit when he learns the target's young daughter is with him.
  • Eye Scream: Steve shoots Percival in the head. The only lasting damage is that Percival loses an eye.
  • Freudian Excuse: Steve's earliest memory is his father throwing his headfirst through a coffee table.
  • Gender-Blender Name: Chris.
  • Groin Attack: Steve finds Brad in the wake of the Honey Trap described below and shoots him in the groin.
  • Heartbroken Badass: Steve is left emotionally torn up by the hit-and-run death of his pregnant wife, leaving him unable to cross the street without freaking out.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Steve experiences one of these after saving a cop from being killed by a thug.
  • Honey Trap: Percival gets caught in one of these when the handsome bartender Brad invites him back to his apartment for sex... only to call in two confederates to help beat the shit out of him for being gay.
  • Ironic Echo: Steve gives Brad roughly the same threat regarding going to the authorities that Brad gave to Percival.
  • It's Personal: Steve hunts down Brad and his confederates after they beat up Percival, caps the confederates, and obliterates Brad's groin with gunshots.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Just see Contrived Coincidence above. Most of the bad things the characters do come back to bite them later in their lives.
  • Made of Iron: Percival survives a lot of things that would kill an ordinary human. It's left him pretty scarred up both physically and mentally.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is Percival cursed or just very 'lucky to be alive'?
  • Mercy Kill: Once we learn why Percival wants to die, the suicide-by-proxy becomes this. And only then is it successful.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Percival, after running over Steven's wife while drunk-driving. It pushed him over the edge and started his suicidal tendencies.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Percival receives one of these at the hands of a group of homophobes.
  • Odd Couple: Steve and Percival are nothing alike, but develop a weird friendship over the course of the film.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Steve vs. the homophobes.
  • Peaceful in Death: Percival, at the end, after Steve forgives him for killing Annie and pushes him off a building.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: Played straight when three gay-bashers are shot in the forehead and go down with little mess. Averted when Percival is shot in the temple, spraying blood all over the wall.
  • The Reveal: Several. Percival realizing he killed Annie. Steve realizing he killed Chris. Steve's boss being a Split Personality / Imaginary Friend.
  • Sex Signals Death: Averted with Percival, played straight with his one night stand.
  • Straight Gay: Percival.
  • Tragic Keepsake: The evening gown's button for Percival.
  • Vorpal Pillow: One of Steve's attempts to kill Percival involves smothering him with a pillow.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Steve has panic attacks and seizures whenever he tries to cross the street.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Percival desperately wants to die, but has survived every attempt to end his life.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Percival believes this is why he can't die, and why Steve must be the one to kill him. This becomes especially prescient when Percival realizes that he was the hit-and-run driver that killed Steve's wife, and Steve in turn realizes that he had killed Percival's lover Christopher before that.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: One interpretation of the ending; after killing Percival, Steve seems to have inherited his curse.

Top