Follows veteran assassin Joe Flood, who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a kill on himself to avoid the pain that is destined to follow. After ordering the kill, he finds out that he was misdiagnosed and must then fend off the army of former colleagues trying to kill him.
If you’re thinking John Wick, don’t, but there’s a slight chance you may enjoy The Killer’s Game. It does contain the same stunt coordinator, J.J. Perry, who is also the director; but unfortunately, it’s not as great. The attempt is there but turns into something else completely that’s easily forgettable. It would be in your best interest to go in not expecting it to be a branch of anything spectacular, because that will only lead to disappointment. That was my mistake from the marketing material. This is a true popcorn summer movie, where you don’t have to pay attention to anything or even listen. It wouldn’t be surprising to learn that was the director’s intent from the beginning. If you are bored and need a film to kill some time this is the one, but other than that It’s not a must-see.
Dave Bautista is the best part of this whole ensemble as he should be. There are other supporting characters as well that do their part whether it be Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews, or Sir Ben Kingsley, but Bautista gets first place. He’s been strong, ferocious, goofy, and sweet in past projects, but here he’s a little bit of it all and well-balanced. It was nice to see the romantic side to his character Joe Flood, something audiences aren’t used to seeing. Bautista knows his limits as an actor but continuously breaks through them each time he shows up in a new film. Whether the film or tv series is a hit or not, he always takes his range as an actor to the next level. This man can lead a film easily, and he did so here which is by far one of the best positives this film could provide. He’s accompanied by Sofia Boutella who plays his love interest, Maize. They have great chemistry together on screen, and their relationship seems like a match made in heaven. A standout for Maize is that she handles tragic news like a pro. While being emotional she contains it well, a skill not many men or women can achieve. She was pleasant, beautiful, soft, and welcoming. It wasn’t hard to see why Joe Flood fell in love with her.
The first act of this film was the best, focusing mainly on Joe Flood and Maize’s relationship thriving. Shortly after, the film starts to take a dip. The plot is revealed in the trailer, and once that occurs in full everything starts to unravel. There were multiple montage sequences towards the beginning of the film, and the editing with multiple frames of footage coming in and out showing the progression of time between characters was splendid and drew you in. This is what assisted in you attaching yourself to the characters early on. Though shortly after this you find out this editing technique was just a smoke screen to cover up how empty and dry this film really is. While the protagonists were great, the villains were dreadfully awful. There was no serious thought put into their shenanigans. Marianna (Pom Klementieff) was the absolute worst. Appearing to weigh no more than 140 pounds, she’s going head-to-head with Dave Bautista. How did anyone think this would be interesting? Even if there is no physical fight between them (which would be ridiculous), she poses absolutely no threat at all and is only yelling through the phone for more than half the movie trying to sound tough. She isn’t scary or intimidating in the slightest. Her henchmen or those who decide to do her bidding are even weaker. They are nothing but goofy assassins who dance around, men that speak in some mush-mouth language, or another group with stupid weapons that they don’t know how to use. Terry Crews was awful too at first with his dry dialogue, but he ended up coming through towards the end. This was such a jarring transition. Early on the editing technique was used to show how great the film was, while in the second act, it was used for the audience to get to know the villains and it was nothing more than a distraction.
Going back to Terry Crews, he was making me laugh. Comedy was one of the saving graces of this entire film. The main leads were great, the story and villains sucked, but this film will still make you laugh. With that 2nd act being sluggish it was necessary for the film to at least finish strong, and it did.
The action was decent too. Some of it was choreographed very well, but you can’t say that across the board. Portions of it looked staged which clocks you out of any movie-going experience, or at least can. One scene where a man was wielding a samurai sword or something similar to it, didn’t work out well. That’s only one example though. There were a few others, but the majority of the action was entertaining. Very unrealistic but entertaining. If you are a bit squeamish from the sight of blood, I would proceed with caution. This film is going for the gore purposefully which doesn’t work either. The amount of blood used is an expression, but not a warranted one. Films like Kill Bill and John Wick earn their grotesque nature because all other aspects of the production are top-notch. You can’t say that here with The Killer’s Game. This film has one of the weakest plots imaginable, with poor dialogue and paper-thin antagonists. There needed to be a bigger foe behind the scenes pulling the strings. If it wasn’t for Dave Bautista and the other leads, this would be an utter failure. Thankfully it’s not, and surprisingly it is still entertaining.
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