By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
There have been many “John Wick” wannabes, but this is by far the worst of them. “The Killer’s Game” is an action movie with over-the-top characters and a brainless plot that does not deserve to appear on any screen, let alone a theatrical one. Not even the sometimes-charismatic Dave Bautista or Oscar winner Ben Kingsley can do anything to make this remotely watchable.
Veteran hitman Joe Flood (Dave Bautista) is the most reliable and reputable assassin in all of Europe. After one particular kill, he meets a ballet dancer named Maize (Sofia Boutella), and an obvious, fast romance ensues. Not getting any younger, Joe confides in his scheduler and best friend, Zvi (Ben Kingsley), that he wants out of the game to finally pursue a real life and love, until he receives an unsettling call from his doctor that he has a terminal illness.
Not wanting to succumb to a slow deterioration, Flood contracts an old enemy, Marianna (Pom Klementieff), to put a hit out on himself. Just as he readies himself to meet a violent end, he receives urgent messages from his doctor that they screwed up and switched his lab results with another person, so he’s perfectly fine. Unable to cancel the contract on himself, Flood must battle waves of assassins to keep him and the love of his life alive.
J.J. Perry is an accomplished martial artist who made his way in Hollywood as a stuntman. Unfortunately, all his black belts do not help him when it comes to directing a feature film. “The Killer’s Game” is the second film in a year to feature a hitman who’s diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the first movie being “Knox Goes Away,” which is far superior in every way. Between the horribly unrealistic blood spatter effects, the cartoonish action sequences with ridiculous weaponry, and horrendously cheesy and clichéd dialogue, Perry fails at the simplest of tasks to achieve any semblance of entertainment value. Even the introductions of various assassin characters, which are completely overdone, depict them as silly caricatures of extreme stereotypes like the characters from the “Street Fighter” video game.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the attempts at humor are pathetic and cringey. Perry should be told that when audiences are laughing during the film, they are not laughing because of the hilarious situations or dialogue within the movie, they are laughing at the movie itself. The most laughable aspect of this production is the numerous errors and plot holes that are glaringly obvious. When the main character states he can’t commit suicide because it negates his life insurance policy, it contradicts the fact that it is a fake insurance policy, and the terms are whatever he decides. Then he gets his friend to wire his girlfriend $500k anyways, so the whole basis of these events is pointless nonsense.
This is the type of film one would expect a professional wrestler to be their first opportunity in the movie business, but Dave Bautista has been doing this for a number of years now. Bautista has previously demonstrated decent acting range from the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies to the “Dune” movies to “Glass Onion,” but his performance in this film is one dimensionally flat. He has absolutely no believable chemistry with his costar, Sofia Boutella, who plays his love interest. Boutella has now appeared in two of the worst films of the year, “Argylle” being the other.
The rest of the supporting cast does nothing to elevate the production. Ben Kingsley plays a very bland role that any actor could have portrayed. Pom Klementieff, who has worked with Dave Bautista on many of those Marvel films, provided an absurdly basic performance as a lollipop chewing assassin boss hellbent on revenge.
This is one game you do not want to be invited to. “The Killer’s Game” is easily one of the worst films of the year if not the worst, unable to even provide gratifying action sequences. It is one of those movies that is so stupid and so bad, it may make viewers laugh to the point they become intoxicated, convinced they just had a good time. Don’t be fooled, laughing at a film is not the same as laughing for a film.
This movie earns:
