‘Under Suspicion’ Movie Ending Explained: Did Tony Really Kill Stasio & Hazel?

“Under Suspicion” is a 1991 neo-noir erotic thriller film directed by Simon Moore, starring Liam Neeson and Laura San Giacomo. The plot is set in the late 1950s and revolves around a morally ambiguous private detective and his wife, who manufacture fake evidence of adultery for divorce cases, but his profession takes a nasty turn when his wife is murdered with one of his extremely rich clients. ‘Under Suspicion’ has a formulaic approach to developing the mystery, and up until the last few seconds of the movie, you really don’t know with whom to sympathize. Even though the ending seems to be rather straightforward, the greatest mystery remained somewhat unanswered, who was the killer after all? This is what we set to uncover today.

Tony Aaron is a disgraced detective looking into some shady business to make ends meet

The movie begins with a flashback; we see a couple of detectives, Tony (Liam Neeson) and Frank (Kenneth Cranham), during a stakeout, watching a huge mansion. At one moment, Tony enters the house, where a sultry blond woman is taking a shower. The two start having sex, but her husband and the target of police activity return home and hear the two of them having sex in the bathroom. Frank is trying to let his partner and friend know that he should get the hell out of the house, but the enraged husband is grabbing a shotgun, and Tony is forced to escape from the house via the balcony.

The rest of the police force has arrived at the scene, being notified by Frank, and even though Tony manages to escape unharmed, one of his colleagues, a police officer named Colin, is shot dead by the husband.

Now, there is a time jump, and the movie properly explains its setting. It’s the 1950s in Brighton, and due to complicated and extremely strict divorce laws, many rich people are staging adultery to be able to divorce their wives. Tony, being fired from the police force, is now working as a private eye and offers services of staging affairs complete with evidence and with his statement to the court as a witness that the adultery has taken place. He has plenty of wealthy clients, all of whom wish to get out of their marriages for one reason or another. We also learn that Tony has married Hazel, the woman he was having sex with at the beginning of the movie, and that the two are having financial troubles. We also learn that Hazel was the one who insisted the two get married.

Now Tony has taken on a new client, a barrister who wishes to get out of his marriage, and the two are planning the action with Tony’s wife acting as a woman with whom the barrister will have an affair. They reach Tony’s office, and Tony can see that it was broken into, but it doesn’t seem like anybody has taken anything from it.

After the successful affair staging, Tony and Hazel return back to his office/apartment, and Hazel asks Tony about the gun he has, a Beretta that was allegedly a gift and a gun previously owned by Mussolini. You better remember this timeline of events since it’s incredibly important later on.

Hazel and a rich painter, Stasio, are killed, and there are plenty of people who would wish him dead

Tony takes on another client, an incredibly rich painter, Stasio. Stasio wants to get out of his marriage to be able to marry his younger mistress. Hazel and Stasio are in the hotel acting the affair while Tony prepares to have a photo of them taken. When he crashes into the hotel room, however, he can see that it’s a crime scene and that both Stasio and his wife are murdered.

We learn that Tony and Frank are still friends, and Frank, still officially a detective, promises that he will find out who killed Hazel. Tony, however, starts his own investigation and goes to Stasio’s funeral. Once there, he sees his widow, Selina, and his mistress, Anglie, can’t stand each other. At this point, Selina and Angeline are the two most probable suspects. Angeline because she had a lot to gain from Stasio dying and Selina because she had even more to gain now that Stasio has run her out of his mansion to move in Angeline. But Selina has an iron-tight alibi on the night of the murder, so Angeline is the primary suspect.

But, two of the police officers have it in for Tony, unable to forgive him for the death of their colleague years ago, and he is officially also considered a suspect. Tony is questioned, and he claims he doesn’t have a gun. Hazel and Stasio have been shot dead in the hotel room, and the only thing missing from the crime scene is Stasio’s thumb.

Tony visits Stasio’s mistress, Angeline, but doesn’t really get anything out of their brief conversation. At the same time, Waterston visits Stasio’s estate manager, Roscoe, who has a suspicious gap in time on the night of the murders, although Roscoe visited Angline visited him so he could explain the details of Stasio’s adultery scheme to her and that Angeline apparently wanted to stop it. Waterston learns that Angeline had no idea that Stasio was going to such great lengths to divorce her former wife and marry her. Roscoe claims that he stayed over at Angeline’s until 10 pm and then returned home.

Angeline doesn’t care about the money

Tony sneaks into Angeline’s mansion but is promptly caught by her. After a brief exchange, she invites him over to Stasio’s studio, where he used to paint. Tony learns that Angline doesn’t care about money all that much; she has plenty of it. She throws a painting worth $20,000 dollar into the fire, and if Tony manages to get it out, he can keep it.

Tony jumps at the fire and Angline proves that he cares about money more than her. Tony also notices that all the paintings were signed, but the standard is to sign the painting after it was bought so that it can’t be faked. Angeline says that Stasio had a clever system. He would both sign the painting and put his thumbprint on it, which can’t be faked in any case – remember, the only thing missing from the crime scene was Stasio’s thumb.

Angeline further explains that she didn’t want to marry Stasio as he planned on going to America, but he was persistent. The relationship wasn’t all that serious for her, but Stasio has become obsessed.

At the police station, Wateston discovers a photo in which Tony is shown shooting from a gun, despite his claiming that he doesn’t know how to handle one and that he doesn’t own one. Frank finds out about the gun and goes to ask Tony about it. Tony explains that it was a souvenir from the war and that he didn’t report the gun because he has no license for it. Frank forces him to show him the gun, but at that moment, Tony discovers that his Beretta is gone from the safe, most likely stolen. Tony also explains that he had a break-in into his office a few days before the murder took place and that it was most likely stolen then.

Roscoe is lying about something

Frank visits Roscoe once again, but his wife answers the door and claims that her husband returned home on the night of the murder after midnight. At that moment, Roscoe returns home, angry, and tells Frank to leave his wife alone. But Frank asks him why it took him 2 hours to drive 3 miles. Roscoe doesn’t have an answer, but Frank swears he will find out.

He goes to visit Selina, but as it turns out, Tony is already there. Frank is pissed, but it’s understandable why Tony would go to the widow because he is, after all, conducting his own private investigation. While talking with Selina, Tony and Frank figure that she is one extremely bitter wife due to being used and cheated on, but she most likely didn’t kill her husband. Besides, she does have an iron-tight alibi for the night of the murder, the only option being that she hired someone to do it, but considering the place where she currently lives, that seems improbable.

Tony still claims that Angeline is the one who killed Stasio since she is the only one who has to gain something from it. Frank warns Tony that he should stay away from Angeline, even though Angeline technically did hire Tony to solve the murders.

Tony, of course, doesn’t listen to Frank and goes to see Angeline again; through talking, she gives him a few suggestive remarks, and all the while, both notice that someone is stalking them on her property. They retreat to the house, and Angeline tells Tony to get them a bottle of wine from the basement; once there, the lights are turned off, another sign that someone is following him. The two eventually have sex together, with Angeline revealing that she wants to leave England and wants to start adventuring again. She also once again confirms that she was never with Stasio because of the money, she wanted to be adored and worshiped which is something that Stasio provided.

At the same time, Waterston is watching the house from the garden and developing his own plans.

Frank and Tony find the murder weapon

Tony leads Frank to a hotel where the murders took place, and the two investigate the room. They notice how the killer killed Hazel and Stasion from close proximity, meaning that both of them trusted the murderer. They also manage to locate the escape route that leads to the roof, which allows him to move all over the hotel without being seen.

Now that the technicalities have been solved, there is still the issue of the murder weapon missing. But Frank notices a chimney that leads to a boiler room powered by a massive furnace. The maintenance man explains that the furnace is never emptied since it has a removable ash-tray. Poking through the fire, Frank discovers a literal smoking gun and throws it in the cold water to cool it off. Frank asks Tony which make was his gun, and Tony answers Beretta, as that same gun can be seen cooling in the bucket.

Frank says that he has to arrest Tony since the evidence against him is overwhelming, but Tony begs for 24 more hours to prove his innocence. Frank agrees and attempts to exonerate his friend. The two are seen breaking into Roscoe’s office as Stasio’s last will and testament are being read. As it turns out, 24 hours before his death, Stasio changed his will and left everything to Angeline, his mistress, while completely omitting his lawful wife. Tony tells Frank once again that Angeline must have done it since she is now officially the only person to benefit from his death. The only.

Tony goes to see Angline once again that night, to sleep with her and to recover some possible evidence. While Angeline is sleeping, Tony goes to Stasio’s former studio and starts rummaging through things. Angeline catches him, and they both argue since, despite claiming that he has feelings for her, Tony keeps snooping around her house and clearly is building a case against her.

At the same time, Frank is tailing Roscoe, the same Roscoe that lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murder. It turns out that Roscoe is homosexual, something that was highly illegal at the time.

Tony is arrested

To prove his loyalty, Tony leads Angeline to the former house of his murdered wife, Angeline, where she used to live with her husband before he was hanged for the murder of young police officer Colin. He tells her the whole story about what transpired that night. He and Hazel started the affair, and once her husband shot and killed Colin, it turned out that he was completely broke and in some illegal trouble. Angeline feels sympathetic toward him, but at that second, Waterston enters the house and beats Tony up.

Frank is at the same time working on Roscoe, who claims that he knows who killed Stasio. Roscoe knows he is in a lot of trouble and commits suicide rather than going to jail right in front of Tony and Frank. He left a single piece of paper on his desk, which states that Tony killed Stasio. Frank has no choice but to arrest Tony.

The trial begins, and Tony is sentenced to death by hanging

The trial is underway, and Tony is being questioned about everything, but primarily, his amoral profession and his marriage to Hazel are being dragged through the mud. The evidence that Tony never cared about Hazel is damning since apparently he wanted to profit by marrying her once her husband was out of the picture, but as it turned out, he was broke.

The prosecution also enters the gun as evidence, with Tony defending himself that the gun has been stolen; the only witness that he has that someone has broken into his office was the barrister who worked with him to stage the affair. Frank somehow manages to talk the barrister into testifying in court. Even though the barrister’s testimony was useful when Angeline was called to the stand, she admitted that she had seen the killer at the hotel that night, and even though she hadn’t seen his face, there was a specific way in which he lit his cigarette and she never before saw something like that until she met Tony. Now with this damning evidence, the jury convicts Tony to death by hanging.

Now desperate, Tony calls Frank and tells him to search Angeline’s house once again and find something, anything. As it turns out, Angeline is about to depart to America, and the whole house is basically packed; Tony is rummaging through her stuff and at first fails to find anything until he opens Stasio’s painting supplies, there in a single bottle. He finds the missing thumb and manages to stop Tony’s execution from taking place. Instead, Angeline is arrested.

So, who was the killer?

After being exonerated, Tony meets with Frank and tells him he is going to America to find a different life for himself there. Frank offers him some money, and after a brief back and forth, Tony accepts. He also visits Angeline in prison, and Angeline begs him to tell her whether he truly killed Stasio and his wife. He also accuses him of planting evidence in Stasio’s studio that last night that they slept together last. Tony bends down to whisper something in her ear, but we don’t hear what he says to her.

In the next scene, Selina and Tony are preparing to depart to the United States, and Selina talks about how much she earned by selling Stasio’s painting since after Angeline was convicted of murder, everything went to her. As it turns out, Selina and Tony had an agreement. Tony was supposed to kill Stasio and Hazel, with Selina and Tony splitting the profits from Stasio. Once they get enough money to be settled for life, they will leave in search of a better life.

Selina was bitter in any case and already had reason enough to kill Stasio, while Tony wanted to get rid of Hazel, who he considered to be deadweight ever since he figured out that she wouldn’t be inheriting anything from her hanged husband. It was an offer for a new life, one he couldn’t miss. Especially given how he grew up in poverty and stayed in poverty for most of his life.

Selina asks Tony whether he would like to sell that portrait of Angline that Angline gave to her when they met since it can fetch quite the price on the market, but Tony declines. Selina criticized Tony for taking so long to plant the evidence in Angeline’s house and accused him of falling in love with Angeline. Tony denies it and says that it was just business. Selina tells him that he now has everything he ever wanted as Tony stares into the distance and lits up a cigarette in that specific way of his, meaning that Angline didn’t lie and she truly did see Tony after he killed both Stasio and Hazel. Tony was murdered all along.

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