Warning: Major spoilers for Alarum below!Sylvester Stallone’s latest action thriller Alarum came dangerously close to breaking his worst screen habits – then chickens out at the moment of truth. The latest Sylvester Stallone action movie features the screen legend in a supporting role as Chester, an arbiter (AKA ᴀssᴀssin) sent to take out an AWOL spy named Joe (Scott Eastwood). Sadly, Alarum doesn’t quite break Stallone’s recent disappointing action streak – though it is more fun than 2024’s dour Armor.
Stallone’s appearance in Alarum is very much an extended cameo, though he’s such a pro he steals every scene regardless. It’s also something of a villain role, with Chester preferring to kill using a slow-acting poison. He injects Joe with this poison around the midway mark, which gives Eastwood’s character 60 minutes to finish the mission before his death. This adds a nice ticking clock element – until Alarum’s ending reveals Joe secretly poisoned Chester instead.
Alarum’s Ending Wussed Out On Killing Sylvester Stallone’s Chester
Stallone’s Chester gets a last-minute reprieve in the final scene
It turns out Eastwood’s Joe removed the poison from Chester’s vial and replaced it with water; he then dumped the actual poison in the ᴀssᴀssin’s vodka. A dying Chester then pleads with Joe for the antidote before accepting his fate, and for a brief moment, it feels like Stallone is about to break his no-death rule for the first time in 47 years. Instead, Joe hands Chester the antidote on condition that he join the rogue spy agency Alarum and fight with them.
This is an obvious sequel setup, though time will tell if one finally happens. It felt like a big moment that Stallone was finally willing to break his death rule, which has been in place since F.I.S.T. That 1978 thriller ended with Stallone’s union leader being gunned down – a decision Stallone disagreed with. Since then, Sly’s held a no-kill rule for his characters, regardless of the size of his role.
Alarum’s ending toys with the possibility of killing Stallone’s Chester before chickening out…
It would have been odd for him to break a decades-long habit for a low-budget action flick like Alarum, however. Still, the movie’s ending toys with the possibility before chickening out. This would have felt like a more fitting fate for Chester too, being karma for his actions throughout the rest of the story.
Why Stallone Hates Dying In His Movies
Sly is in the “hope” business
Stallone’s dislike of dying onscreen stems from F.I.S.T., as he believed his character being killed sent a terrible message to audiences that evil can triumph. In the years since he has toyed with killing off Rocky Balboa – which was the original plan for Rocky V before the studio talked him out of it – and Rambo, but neither came to pᴀss. Stallone once explained in his Netflix documentary Sly that he is in the “hope business,” and believes audiences get bummed out when their heroes die, regardless of the narrative reason.
The original ending of First Blood featured Rambo’s death – despite Stallone protesting to the producers against this. After bad test screening results, it was resH๏τ to have the character survive.
At this point in his career, Stallone is unlikely to change his perspective on this matter. This is fine, though there have been movies like Daylight or Get Carter where his protagonists dying would have made more sense for the story. It would have made Alarum’s ending more of an event if he finally crossed that line too.
