The Killer’s Game

 

I saw The Killer’s Game, and here are my thoughts…

Dave Bautista plays Joe, a hitman who wants to retire after meeting a girl… but then puts a hit on himself after being diagnosed with a fatal disease… unfortunately, he was misdiagnosed and he has to fight off the killers coming after him.

Joe is a typical action hero, he has a certain set of skills, which he has acquired after a very long career. Plus he’s a nice guy, only killing evil criminals for a secret assassin organization called “The Game”. 

The film could have been a John Wick spin-off, it has a similar slick colorful style, a quiet, brooding, but kind-hearted hero, a secret group of assassins, and cool hand-to-hand combat and gunplay.

Dave Bautista is a likable lead, he kicks a lot of butt in the action scenes, is sweet in the romantic scenes, and has a nice sense of humor for moments of levity.

Sofia Boutella plays his love interest, and she’s very natural and sweet in the role, plus she and Batista have great chemistry, you like them as a couple.

The first half of this movie feels like a slice-of-life romantic drama, with action touches. Ben Kingsley plays Joe’s hitman agent, he and Batista seem like excellent friends and bounce well off each other. Also props to Alex Kingston, who plays Ben Kingsley’s wife, she’s not in the movie much, but she is a hoot and makes the most of her screen time.

This movie feels like two parts, and I was digging the first half of this movie. While very boilerplate plot-wise (we’ve all seen plenty of action movies where there is a guy who’s got skills and he’s got a kick a lot of ass to save loved ones), this film had style, well-done action, plus the romance was very down to earth and cute in a non-schmaltzy way, it was cute in an innocent way.

Then about halfway through, once the hit went out, it took a shift… before I get there, I should mention the main villainess, Pom Klementieff as Marianna Antoinette. She’s another assassin agent who Joe asks to put the hit on himself, and she’s happy too because he killed (__insert generic loved one here__). Again, you’ve seen this cliche in other action movies, but it’s what you do with them that matters, and for the most part, this movie makes them fun. For example, Antoinette does the villain cliche of “I’ll get you Joe”, “I’ll hire every badass on this continent to hunt you down”, and even the old Chestnut off “even he can’t fight off an army“ threats, but Pom makes a meal out of her scenery chewing, and like a roller coaster, you’re enjoying the ride.

But once Antoinette shows up, her scenery-chewing affects the rest of the movie. Because she calls tons of assassins, and in this world, to be an effective assassin… you have to have a gimmick. We get drunk Irish brothers, two gun-toting strippers, to even a smooth Spaniard who slices deviance by salsa dancing… they all feel like they should be auditioning as Batman villains. 

And this half really lens into the comedy aspects, which gave me some chuckles. Joe definitely has his Arnold Schwarzenegger moments by saying a few classic one-liners, and while a couple of them were high-rolling, some of these would put a proud tear into Arnie’s eyes. 

But other stuff just feels like we’re in a knockoff Quentin Tarantino, Guy, Ritchie, or Robert Rodriguez movie… with funky music and title cards to introduce new characters, the assassins having “jokey stick” with each other, and funny death scenes that’ll go “you son of a… BANG”. It all just feels like you’ve seen this before in other movies.

Terry Crews is also in the movie, and I liked him, everybody loves Terry Crews. But he is paired with this Wigger sidekick for flimsy reasons, and they try to have a mismatch comedy duo thing with them but there's not great material for them to work with. Plus they’re not given a whole lot of screen time together, so honestly, this subplot could’ve been cut. It’s like they wanted someone for Terry Crews to work off of and facilitate a plot point, but it didn’t really pan out as hoped 

These parts can be hit or miss, (I had more hits than misses personally), but it’s defiantly a “your mileage may vary” thing, and I definitely felt a tonal shift compared to the more grounded feeling of the first half, I think the movie would’ve been stronger they had stuck with one tone throughout, or leave them throughout better. I liked both tones, but they were definitely different so the contrast was noticeable.

I will say the action does kick in high gear during this half, and if you’re a fan of the genre, you will definitely be entertained. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but I like Joe… it gets the job done.

The movie does wrap itself up rather quickly like things start going “and then this happens and then this happens, then this happens” in rapid fire, and feels more like plot points than character progression.

Then the movie just sort of goes “And that’s that”, it felt rather anti-climactic. It was like they looked at their watches and went “Oh crap, we have two days left to film, Go go go, wrap it up”. 

There is one character that shows up towards the end that did give me some good laughs, and props to the actor on that one.

This movie is a standard action movie. While it entertain me and filled its ass-kicking, shotgun-blasting, big explosion quota… at a certain point it just started going by the “guy kicks ass in movies” handbook and hit all the familiar beats it needed to, maybe if it had a stronger ending and then a little bit more character work towards the end, it could have turned some of these stale ideas into a reheated pizza (fun and filling), but for now it’s just one of those movies that on a lazy Saturday, if you come across on the Sci-Fi Network, and you just wanna watch some ass kicking… you’ll have a good time 

I give somewhere between low three stars and height two stars ⭐️⭐️ or ⭐️⭐️⭐️… the cast, style, and action really carried the flick, but that script needed some buffering and polishing.