What’s with the ending of the movie mercy road ? Anyone else confused ?

I honestly think he may have had Ruby the whole time & was having a psychotic episode. 

Hi! I am here because I just finished watching and am also confused?

I’m glad i didn’t waste a hour and 30 minutes watching this movie and just watched the first 5 and the last 20 lol. Then came straight here to fill in the blinks. I would have been pissed!

I'm wondering if Ruby, with the help of her nerdy tech friend Darion set the whole thing up to take her parents out because her mom didn't pay attention enough to know what was going on and her dad drank and caused the divorce and wasn't there. That's why she smiled at the end when she saw the blood on the truck visor. Very confusing, open-ended movie that I would never recommend to anyone.

I feel like the gas leak his boss was yelling at him about had something to do with it. Because at the end of the movie, he ends up right back at his work site; the name of the place matches that on his work shirt. I think he's hallucinating like a bad dream, then dies. The hallucination doesn't have to make sense.

But then, the girl smiling at the end makes you completely confused again.

I have like two more theories lmao. But with each one, a couple scenes don't make sense.

Ok, I think I have this. The associate says he always deals with children. I think when the pictures were posted, the associate contacted Ruby. So because she had shitty parents, a mom who married someone who assaulted her and a Dad who she was made (by the mom) to think didn't want her, the associate set up a plan in action. That was to have her Dad so furious he eliminated the step Dad and when telling him to burn the garage down, (again the negotiators tried to tell him there was an accident and they mistaken the mom for her Dad) she was then killed un knowingly by the police while trying to set the fire. While the whole time she was in the back of the truck.  At the end she holds her head up and the Father holds her (by now he's lost his Job, the ex wife and almost his daughter) he snaps and the cops take him out. The associate then tells Ruby that the transaction has ended. So, she smiles. Perfect plan achieved.  This is just one of the couple resolutions I came too. Kudos to the writers for making us all over think this movie. 

So here is my take on this. I believe the daughter and the nerdy neighbor conspired the entire thing. Think about it. If the voice had surveillance in the car and knows he was out of his car, why did he not care that he sent the video in a message to the kid to try and track the number, that would have been a strike against him if he was trying to track the where the voice was. Also,the boyfriend was actually the neighbor down the street, so he count have easily got everything on video. Then at the end when he went out to find his daughter he came back to the car and she appeared in the back seat. She probably got in the back seat and acted like she was heavily sedated. He let the cops track him to that location because he knew his daughter was there. Then once he got out of the vehicle she smiles, as if she wasn’t even really sedated and the plan worked.

About halfway through, I started to think he was crazy and maybe it was a therapy session, court ordered to get his daughter back. After that tunnel vision, everything the associate was saying made complete sense. The only thing that kept throwing me off was him talking about his negotiations with the step dad. Then the end came and I dunno wtf was going on.

Now I'm thinking, as I type this, that maybe we should pay more attention to what the associate said the entire time (as far as what his role is with people) and apply it to him working with Ruby. That maybe the step dad didn't really even do it and Ruby framed him for it. The only reason he knew about it was from her friend. Then the friend told him about Dario ("the geek down the street") to get him talking to him too. They were trying to get him to go back and blow the garage up so he'd get caught/killed. When he didn't do that, then change of plans... Get him to kill himself. Oh wait, he won't do that either.

The associate told us during the bit about what happened at the motel and asking him if the love was reciprocated... "maybe she doesn't feel that way..." (in regards to her not being hurt by what happened).

I dunno, my brain hurts from thinking about it too much though. I'm going to bed. 😂

I feel like the father possibly had a mental illness, possibly schizophrenia, leading to the voices he was hearing. Then, at the end, when the police kill him, it shows Ruby smile because he has passed on the mental illness to her and now the voices are speaking to her.

Here’s my theory but I could be totally off. At the end of the movie, Tom isn’t able to find Ruby because there’s a grove of macadamia trees and time ran out. When he gets back in the truck he puts the gun to his head, his chest and in his mouth. Then suddenly, Ruby is there and he can hear Terri’s voice who died after she set the garage on fire. So this suggests to me they’re all dead. I could go a step further and suggest “the associate” is death himself.

I could be wrong but here’s my take I left on an IMDb review

The ending of the film did leave me with questions. It feels open ended which I'm not traditionally a huge fan of but this time it didn't sting as bad. It's hard to depict reality which works for the story and the viewer.

Though out the film they ask him to bring Ruby back, and is she safe, all implying everyone believes he has her. As the viewer by Tom’s depiction he knows, and we know, that she is kidnapped and he's trying to save her.

Once we get closer to the end of the film Tom starts to let up and tells the negotiator he just needs 19 minutes which from her perspective probably makes him sound crazy. He ends up saying it to himself without answering her or explaining which further makes him sound off the rocker.

Now that there's some doubt in the viewer, when the multiple scenarios of Tom pop in and out of the police being there and him holding his daughter to no one being there but his daughter., you are equally confused and uncertain.

The last scene shows the scenario where the cops are there. Tom gets out of the car with the gun. Then it shows Ruby's perspective and yet again two different versions. She sees the roof of the car in the darker scenario where it was the two of them, and then it shows bloody handprints in the roof of the car and police lights (implying Tom died).

Then the last shot stops of Ruby’s face smiling. Wtf lol. It was great. It then makes you wonder if she did everything or is she just happy cause she hates her dad and he’s dead. Did she make a deal with The Associate? Was he even real? Did Tom shoot himself in the car and the rest was all a dream?

I don’t think there’s a definitive answer. And I think that’s the point. It feels intentionally open ended for the viewer to decide. If that’s not the case well then I am nowhere smart enough.

I really didn’t like the way this movie ended… it left too much unsaid. I guess we’re supposed to come up with our own ideas about what happened.

And the first thing I thought, mainly bc of the daughter’s smile, was that she wanted her parents dead and that she made the deal with “the associate”. She hated her mom for not knowing that she had married a pedophile, and she risked her daughter’s well being by bringing him into their lives. She’s also angry with her dad because he wasn’t there when she needed him the most.

Betrayal is a bitch, and it can make people do some crazy shit in the heat of the moment. I don’t like an open ending like that. I felt like it was a complete waste of my time watching it today.

My take is the same as Queasy-food and when I read a review I thought the guy who wrote it totally missed it. Everyone thinks that he took her because he did. The voice on the phone is one of his multi personalities and he’s suffering a psychotic break with reality. That’s why the voice knows if he’s in the car or not and knows what he’s doing. For instance the spider might not have even been real but if it was who sits and picks it apart after he kills it. He drives by the same man twice 100k apart from each other and why did the man at the store where he got a bottle start crying? He knew what he wanted because he’s an alcoholic but they said in the beginning that he was drunk and had his daughter. He had the bottle the whole time, his daughter the whole time and the gun the whole time and everything else was his imagination playing tricks on him. That’s why the appear out of nowhere. The negotiations don’t make sense otherwise. Who gets out of the car with a gun because he’s “excited“? He’s a crazy man and the movie is shot in a way to support that. Just my take.