Don’t look now, but there’s a new action comedy about a hitman! No one should be surprised, as it one of them seems to come out at least once a month, all of which seem to hit the same level of adequacy regardless of talent or budget. Today’s installment, The Killer’s Game, is no different, despite boasting a killer cast and a promising director in J.J. Perry, a longtime stunt performer and second unit director who made his feature debut a while back with the under-appreciated Jamie Foxx vampire movie Day Shift.
Dave Bautista (looking simultaneously too slim and too big for some reason) stars as Joe Flood, regarded by nearly all in his little cottage industry as the world’s greatest assassin. He’s even world-renowned for his ethical approach to killing people for money. After chaos erupts during a nearly botched hit that takes place at a opera house dance performance, Joe finds himself falling for the dancer, Maize (Sofia Boutella, for once not playing a badass babe). He’s in love, he wants to retire and tell her the truth about what he does, but before he can do that the violent headaches he’s been having lead to a terminal diagnosis. Determined to go out on his own terms, Joe tries to put out a contract on himself, but his benevolent handler/bestie Zvi (Ben Kingsley) refuses to do it, and so Joe turns to Antoinette (Pom Klementieff) and her network of killers, which suits her just fine because she hates Joe’s guts (he killed her old man). But, oops! Turns out Joe was misdiagnosed, is not actually dying, and now there’s nothing he can do about the fact that every bad guy in killerdom is gunning for him.
Phew! That’s entirely too much plot for one of these things, and its explication takes up a whopping 45 minutes of this otherwise brisk little thing, so you’d be forgiven for wanting to check out by then. Fortunately, The Killer’s Game finally starts living up to its title, as Joe is pursued by a literal and figurative murderer’s row of DTV action stars, including but not limited to Terry Crews, Daniel Bernhardt, the great Scott Adkins (doing a Scottish accent no less), and Marko Zaror. This movie could have been outright terrible (it isn’t), but it’s elevated by the sheer pleasure involved in watching a bunch of your favorite action folks get together to put on a show. They all get to do a fun little bit of shtick — Zaror is a particular hoot as a ridiculous flamenco dancing fiend. Perry proves an adept shooter of action, emphasizing his performers rather than having to cut around them, but there’s a little too much CGI grue for some folks’ taste, so fair warning.
The film’s biggest problem, though, is the aforementioned early sluggish pace, which is compounded in the more amusing back half by a lot of monotony of incident. Even though it’s undeniably fun to see everybody out here having a blast, the one-after-another structure becomes repetitive and everybody’s little gimmicks tend to lean a bit too much on the side of self-consciously goofy. Even Bernhardt’s character remarks that they’re all just like stupid cartoon characters — which is to say, mileages will certainly vary. But as with everything else in The Killer’s Game, it’s all playful enough to mindlessly enjoy if you’re into this sort of thing; just don’t enter expecting anything new from the hitman comedy template.
DIRECTOR: J.J. Perry; CAST: Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews, Pom Klementieff, Ben Kingsley; DISTRIBUTOR: Lionsgate; IN THEATERS: September 13; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 44 min.