Director, screenwriter and producer Rand Ravitch wrote the script for The Killer's Game back in the mid-90s. The adaptation of the novel by the American writer Jay Bonansinga looked extremely ambitious, but the film almost instantly fell into "production hell." The actors and directors involved in it changed one by one. There was a time when John Woo, the maestro of fight choreography himself, wanted to work on the film, but it didn't work out.
It seemed that The Killer Game would remain an unrealized script somewhere on a shelf. However, in 2024, the film was finally released by Lionsgate and director J.J. Perry. However, the final result was so mediocre that perhaps the original script was not worth all the effort and fuss.
| Title | The Killer's Game |
| Genre | action, thriller, action, adventure, comedy |
| Director | J. J. Perry |
| Starring | Dave Bautista, Sofia Butella, Pom Klementiev, Scott Adkins, Ben Kingsley, Terry Crews and others |
| Studios | Mad Chance Productions, Endurance Media, Lionsgate |
| Timing | 1 hour 44 minutes |
| Year | 2024 |
| Website | IMDb |
Killer Joe Flood (Dave Bautista) does dirty work, but he follows his own code of honor. He kills only villains and has never endangered the lives of civilians in his entire career. For this, John is respected among his "colleagues," although over the years he has begun to feel a longing for a normal life. He sees his chance for salvation in the ballerina Maisie (Sofia Boutella), with whom he falls in love almost at first sight - and it quickly becomes obvious that these feelings are mutual. However, doctors discover that the killer has an incurable disease. So he decides to take a radical step: Joe orders his own murder from killers so that the insurance company can pay Maisie's money for it. The man wants to provide his beloved girl with a peaceful life and keep his own secrets, but, of course, everything goes completely wrong.
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Still from the movie The Killer's Game[/caption]
The lengthy description above doesn't even tell the half of the movie's trailer. At this point, The Killer's Game has become a victim of modern trends in advertising promotion. Some trailers show too much. "Killer Game" is quite capable of setting an anti-record in this regard, because the trailer includes scenes from almost the last ten minutes of the story. So be careful if you don't want to spoil your experience once again.
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Still from the movie The Killer's Game[/caption]
However, even the official synopsis tells almost half of the important information about the plot. This is too much for any story. However, you are unlikely to lose much if you read the entire retelling of The Killer's Game somewhere on the Internet. This story is formulaic and mostly meaningless. The most interesting part of the story is the plot, which for some reason the filmmakers decided to reveal to absolutely everyone before the movie. The decision is strange, but partly understandable. Because films like this one are rarely watched for the sake of history. So what does it have to offer instead?
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The subgenre of action movies about spies, assassins, and other secret agents has always attracted viewers with its style and pathos. Of course, real secret services don't have conventional pencils with poisoned nibs or fancy weapons (in fact, they do, and who better than Ukrainians to know about it - ed.) And the agents themselves are as close as possible to ordinary people. But movies like Bullet Train, Kingsman: The Secret Service, John Wick and others paint a more attractive picture. Where assassins are the standard of luxury, shock value, and good taste, and their lives are an endless adventure that ordinary people can only dream about.
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Still from the movie The Killer's Game[/caption]
From the poster of The Killer's Game alone, it becomes clear that the movie is trying to attract with such elements. Each killer is presented with small but visually interesting and, more importantly, unique scenes. The design of their costumes and general aesthetics is also successful. All of them seem to be not from this planet, but it is all the more interesting to watch the interaction of such dangerous people.
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Still from the movie The Killer's Game[/caption]
The problems begin when you realize that the movie doesn't want to reveal the characters or make them any more interesting than Joe Flood's regular victims. Joe himself turned out to be a rather stereotypical, almost boring protagonist. He lacks vivid character traits, sharp phrases and other components that turn a passable image into a hero that viewers will definitely remember.
And the style of The Killer's Game itself, frankly, loses out to almost all similar films. It's as if the crew was afraid to run headlong into kitschiness, which makes the world of the killers lose its colors. And for a realistic approach, the picture lacks weight, inertia and a good "dirty" presentation of the setting. This is despite the fact that the director has worked as a stuntman for a long time, so he knows his way around spectacular stunts. Due to the uncertainty of the tone, The Killer's Game runs the risk of seeming completely uninspired to some. This is given that there are good moments, scenes, and finds in it.
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Still from the movie The Killer's Game[/caption]
Something similar can be said about the direction. Some scenes are genuinely impressive, especially when it comes to the "creative" use of the blood of dead people. And they die on screen often. However, as soon as you, as a viewer, begin to catch the mood of the director, the film crew for some reason puts on the brakes and switches to standard angles and transitions that seem to have been taken from the basic Adobe Premiere Pro library. There is nothing consistently good about cinema.
And it's a shame, because the general spirit that unites The Killer's Game not even with other films, but with comics, can be traced through all the flaws. However, the filmmakers don't seem to understand how to turn good ideas into a good product. Some storylines end in nothing or get the most ridiculous of possible solutions. And at its climax, the story of The Killer's Game throws one of the most cringe-worthy scenes of the year at you instead of catharsis.
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Still from the movie The Killer's Game[/caption]
Perhaps the "production hell" mentioned at the beginning of the review is to blame, which makes The Killer's Game look like a jumble of thoughts, ideas, and methods. For every good thing in a movie, there is definitely something bad in equal measure. It's definitely not a "no" movie, because the good, potentially outstanding intentions are visible. But for an ordinary viewer, this doesn't make The Killer's Game any less mediocre. After all, you can't make a good movie with intentions alone.