The new movie on Tubi, Alarmed, written and directed by Matthew Kohnen, might suffer from false advertising. It is being presented as a crime thriller, but in fact, it is more of an action comedy. The story revolves around a couple whose son gets trapped in the house with a girl he had called over. They are then attacked by robbers who haven’t come to steal something but rather to settle a score for an incident related to an alarm system. Hence the title. The lead performers Pooch Hall and Brittany Baker carry most of the film on their shoulders and make for quite an interesting couple that is going through some marriage troubles. Alarmed‘s ending doesn’t quite gel with the whole film, but it makes for an entertaining watch.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?
Sean and Janet got married a long time ago. They had Billy very early in the marriage, and he is a force to be reckoned with. On the cusp of turning eighteen, he hacked into the FBI’s server and got arrested. Janet’s company makes alarm systems for their customers. She is obsessed with technology and, like a good CEO, uses the system in her own house as well, as a symbol of trust in what she’s selling to others. Her career might be on the rise, but the quality of her marriage is deteriorating, and both Sean and Janet are to blame. They want to be together, which is why they plan a getaway in the hope that spending some time together might reignite the spark they once had. They could’ve never imagined in their wildest dreams that even after having one of the greatest alarm systems, robbers would get in the house and take Billy hostage.
How Did Janet And Sean Find Out What The Robbers Wanted?
The robbers knew about the camera positions and how to break in. They used a decoy in order to distract Billy. Billy had met a girl online, and she agreed to visit the house once Janet and Sean had left. The girl, named Kat, had her own problems, which the robbers used as leverage to force her to distract Billy while they broke in. The leader of these robbers, a masked man, could be seen giving instructions to the camera, implying he knew that Janet was watching. On the camera were instructions to get moving and arrive at a location where a loaded gun had been planted with a message. The robbers wanted Janet to kill Larry if she wanted to see her son alive.
Who Was Larry, And Why Did The Robbers Want Him Killed?
The getaway had turned into a nightmare. Their marriage had been tested, but never like this. They went through all sorts of trouble to get to the box with the loaded gun and had to make a choice: whether to kill Larry or go to the cops and risk Billy’s life. Janet decided to go to Larry’s house and sort the matter out by finding out who the robber could be. Larry was the owner of the security service company. This meant that the robber had a beef either against Larry regarding his alarm system or against Janet and wanted to frame her for Larry’s murder.
Janet and Sean reached Larry’s place, and there, through the CCTV footage, they found the leader entering the building and recognized who he was. A few years ago, a man named Andrew Tyler lost his family because Larry’s alarm system had malfunctioned. While Andrew was away, some delinquents had broken into his house and killed his wife and child, and the security system didn’t go off, hence the police didn’t reach the scene in time. Now Andrew wanted revenge, and so he chose Janet, who was the CEO of the company and trusted the alarm system so much, to realize what he had gone through. He wanted Larry dead, and Janet was the scapegoat through which he would get it done.
Why Did Kat Help Andrew?
Kat had nothing against the Davidson family. She had been blackmailed by Andrew, which was why she felt helpless and decided to be his decoy. Andrew had the footage of Kat’s father stealing a car, and he sent it to the state police’s online drive. If Kat didn’t comply, he wouldn’t delete it. Fearing her father’s arrest, Kat didn’t leave, even when there was a chance. That made it seem like she was in on Andrew’s plan, but the truth was completely the opposite. When Billy found out about this, he promised to help her hack into the state police’s system and delete her father’s footage.
How Did Janet And Sean Save Billy?
Janet and Sean met Larry and figured out who he was. Sean had lied about why he was arrested once, and now he figured that Janet had kept some secrets from him too. In the midst of this terrifying scenario, they were keeping scores and understanding new things about their partner. Janet asked her friend Angela to get Billy out of the situation, but before Janet could give her the full information about the robbers, the network failed. Angela arrived at the house with her date, unaware of the robbers in the house. They, too, were taken hostage.
Andrew sensed that Janet wasn’t playing by his rules, and perhaps it was in that moment that he knew that she wouldn’t kill Larry. That is why he arrived at Larry’s place and tried to kill him himself. Sean tried to shoot Andrew, but he survived. Andrew didn’t listen to Janet’s plea and shot Larry dead. Andrew left Janet alive because he wanted her to feel what he felt when he lost his family. Andrew had hired the robbers for his own revenge, but once they saw the files at Larry’s place, they saw a chance to reel in millions. Larry had saved video surveillance footage from the houses that used his security systems, which was completely unethical, and even Janet was shocked by this revelation. The men Andrew hired wanted to blackmail the clients with sensitive footage, and seeing himself outnumbered, he had to stall his plan for a bit. In the middle of the infighting, Sean communicated through symbols, as he knew Janet could watch the footage through her phone.
Janet could control the systems from her phone and began to toy with the robbers inside. Andrew was away dealing with the drives the men had found at Larry’s place. The plan was to execute Janet’s family after the data on the drives were uploaded. The men separated and therefore not at their full strength and Sean used the opportunity to pounce on them. Janet sounded a fire alarm, ensuring that the authorities would show up at the scene in no time.
During Alarmed‘s ending, Billy kept his promise, hacked into the police servers, and deleted Kat’s father’s footage. Janet handled the security system from right outside the house, and the men in the house panicked. Billy, Kat, Angela, and her date all fought against the men, along with Sean. Andrew was smacked hard in the face by Janet herself, while the police sirens were heard in the background. The eventful night came to an end. Andrew would be caught, and Janet would ensure that unethical practices would stop at the company. She would also look into the matter of malfunctioning equipment. The bottom line was that the entire episode had not driven the couple apart. Sure, some secrets came out, but it all ultimately benefited the marriage. Billy was safe, and the best part was that he wanted to leave the house and go with Kat. He was a homebody, but seeing him happy with Kat delighted Sean and Janet the most.
