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The Killer's Game (2024)

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Review

The Killer's Game (2024)

There is a kernel of a good movie buried somewhere inside the baroque theatrics of The Killer’s Game. In fact, there are several elements that work quite well (more on that later). Unfortunately, those few appealing bits get washed away in a tide of over-the-top gore and wrenching tonal shifts that alternately try the viewer’s stomach and/or patience.

Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.) plays Joe Flood, a ruthless and prolific professional hitman who discovers he has an incurable neurological disease. He decides to put out a contract on himself…ostensibly so he can go out with dignity and a defensible insurance claim. His plan is complicated by an unexpected romance with a ballet dancer (Sofia Boutella). But of course, there’s a reversal (shown in the movie’s trailer), and now Joe must defend himself against the parade of flamboyant assassins headed his way.

First-time director J.J. Perry, a frequent stuntman, demonstrates his understanding of cinematic action sequences, and he has filled the movie with stunt performers as minor and short-lived characters. The many, many fight scenes here are staged in an entertaining though much too gruesome way. The overall tone of The Killer’s Game reflects the “video-gamification” of the film industry, because the action is comically outrageous and unnecessarily gory in a way that is dismissive of the characters’ deaths. Apparently, none of these are real people, and thus no need to contemplate their demise, just marvel at the cleverness of how they are dispatched.

Bautista, an imposing presence with his blocky body and profuse tattoo art, has managed to find roles in recent years that transcend the seeming limitations of his distinctive physical form. Bautista was funny and self-deprecating in the My Spy films for Amazon, and here he is surprising touching, and credible, in a romantic role. There is also nice interplay with his hitman manager Svi (Ben Kingsley) and Svi’s wife Sharon (Alex Kingston).

But all of that gets pushed aside for a series of brutal, ostensibly funny action sequences in and around the story’s location in Budapest Hungary. The virtuosic stunts will impress, as long as you pay no attention to the casual, even dismissive attitude toward the loss of life.