Kick-Ass (film) - Plot

Plot

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is an ordinary teenager who lives in Staten Island, New York City. Dave purchases a bodysuit and, after making modifications, embarks on a campaign to become a real-life superhero. The first of his crime-fighting encounter leads him to getting stabbed and getting run over in a hit and run, leaving him with permanent nerve damage and requiring internal fixations all over his body. However, he gains an enhanced capacity to endure pain and enhanced durability. His effort to conceal the truth leads to rumors that he is gay. His longtime crush, Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca) immediately attempts to become his friend. After intervening in a gang attack, Dave's actions are recorded by a bystander and put on the internet, turning him into a celebrity. Calling himself "Kick-Ass", he sets up a MySpace account so he can be contacted for help. After responding to a request from Katie, he deals with a drug dealer, Rasul, who has been harassing her. Rasul and his thugs quickly overpower him, but he is rescued by eleven-year-old vigilante Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz), who kills Rasul first, and then kills all of Rasul's thugs and leaves with her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage).

Big Daddy is Damon Macready, a former cop who has a long-standing grudge against crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) for framing him as a drug dealer. His former partner at the New York Police Department, Marcus Williams (Omari Hardwick), became guardian to his daughter, Mindy. Big Daddy, however, has reclaimed Mindy and is training her to be a skilled crime-fighter. However, Big Daddy's actions inadvertently made D'Amico target Kick-Ass instead, believing that it was the latter that killed his men. D'Amico's son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), suggests a different approach. He assumes the role of the vigilante "Red Mist" in order to befriend Kick-Ass and lure him into a trap. However, when they arrive, D'Amico's men are dead and the warehouse is on fire.

Following his escape from the warehouse fire, Dave decides to quit being Kick-Ass. He confesses the truth to Katie, and she forgives him and becomes his girlfriend. A week later, after finding a number of messages from Red Mist urgently requesting they meet, Dave decides to don his Kick-Ass costume one last time. At the meeting, Red Mist creates a ruse that both he and Kick-Ass have a bounty placed on both of their heads. Believing the story, Kick-Ass calls his allies, unwittingly leading Big Daddy and Hit-Girl into an ambush. Upon arriving at one of Big Daddy's safe houses, Red Mist shoots Hit-Girl out of a window, and D'Amico's men storm the place, capture Big Daddy and taking Kick-Ass with them. D'Amico intends to have his thugs torture and execute his captives in a live Internet broadcast viewed by millions, including Katie and Marcus, who can only watch helplessly. Hit-Girl, having survived the shooting, storms the hideout, killing all of the gangsters; but during the struggle, one thug sets Big Daddy on fire, fatally burning him.

Hit-Girl infiltrates D'Amico's headquarters, pretending she lost her parents, kills the lobby guards and makes her way upstairs. Arriving at D'Amico's penthouse, she proceeds to kill every henchman in her path. She runs out of bullets at the end when Kick-Ass arrives on a jet pack fitted with miniguns that Big Daddy had previously acquired, and kills the remaining thugs. Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl then take on D'Amico and his son. While Kick-Ass fights Red Mist in the training room and the two manage to knock each other unconscious, Hit-Girl is overpowered by D'Amico (who was revealed earlier to be a black belt in martial arts) after a vicious fight and lies helpless as he prepares to kill her. As D'Amico aims his gun, Kick-Ass comes around and, armed with a bazooka that D'Amico's bodyguard had taken from Big Daddy's safehouse, comes to her aid, blasting D'Amico out of the window where he explodes in mid-air.

Red Mist revives in time to see Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl leaving on the jet pack, and is powerless to stop them. Mindy and Dave retire from crime fighting to live a more normal life, and Mindy returns to live with Marcus, and enrolls at Dave's school. Dave has been told to look after Mindy, although "not that she needs it". Dave explains that although he is done with crime fighting, a new "generation" of superheroes have been inspired by his endeavor, and the city is safer as a result. Meanwhile, Red Mist sits in his late father's office and takes on the identity of a supervillain, the Mother-Fucker.