The Killers Game Is An Entertaining One Indeed
The Killers Game is in theaters now! Can it stand with the competition or is it dead on arrival?
"The Killers Game" a romantic/action comedy that stars Dave Bautista as hit-man Joe Flood, ready to retire with his new love interest, but after being diagnosed with a terminal disease, he decides to go out on his own terms and orders a hit on himself from his rival.
Shortly after the order is given, Joe's doctor informs him on a mix-up and that he was misdiagnosed. Now with no way to stop the active contract and blood-thirsty assassins on his tail, Joe must survive and protect his new found love, and find out what it means to live with a purpose.
I went in completely blind to this movie, which doesn't happen often. I saw no trailers, reviews or TV spots on this movie, except for a poster. I was really going to please one of my friends because they really wanted to see it because of Dave Bautista. That being said, boy did I have a great time with this movie.
The movie balances romantic comedy and serious action film extremely well. All the characters were very fleshed out, with goals the audience understands in the first 5 minutes. This film is very simple, but the way it’s directed and written makes it stand out from the generic crowd, despite ironically a very generic poster and trailer.
I also had no idea this movie was rated R, so imagine my surprise when during the first big action sequence, I saw Dave Bautista physically pick a person around his size and smack them into an iron pole, completely decimating his facial structure. After that, I knew I was in for a great time!
Dave Bautista gets to really branch out his acting with this role. Like his character Drax, in "Guardians of the Galaxy", Bautista's character in this movie has a very tough, unbeatable aura surrounding him. When interacting with the supporting cast, he’s allowed to thrive as a loving boyfriend, colleague, and delivers a powerful emotional scene. For example, he was diagnosed with the disease and it was great to see him step out of the big, strong guy performance into something with more depth.
Sofia Boutella is also fantastic as Maize, Joe's partner. She was a great addition, being a badass but also a very relatable character.
I won’t spoil the supporting cast because going in blind and seeing a bunch of actors and actresses I recognized was a lot of fun. I highly suggest you see this movie with no research, it completely adds to the insane plot of the movie.
All the action is fantastic and full of life. It felt like it belonged in the "John Wick" series of movies, which I wouldn't mind at all.
Some negatives about the movie would be that the ending felt very rushed and there's a lot of CGI blood which made me roll my eyes a couple times, especially when there didn’t need to be any. Some of the CGI backgrounds were atrocious especially when Joe goes to visit his rival. Nothing in that scene looked real, so much it looked like a video game.
I’ll wrap up by saying that this movie is a ton of fun, especially blind. I will once again reinstate that this movie should be seen blind to make the most fun out of it. This movie was a great time at the theater. I’d give it a solid 8/10.
