Prime Time: The Killer's Game (2024)

The second feature film directed by J. J. Perry (after the enjoyable Night Shift), I have to start this review by saying that there was a lot here that seemed to be appealing directly to me. I like both Dave Bautista and Sofia Boutella, who have main roles here. I like a lot of movies about hitmen, of which this is one. And I like a lot of people in the supporting cast, from Scott Adkins to Terry Crews, and from Alex Kingston to Pom Klementieff . . . and I suppose that Ben Kingsley does okay in the right role. So it's a shame that this was so awful. 

Bautista plays Joe Flood, one of the best hitmen in the business. He meets a beautiful dancer named Maize Arnaud (Boutella), and that makes him start to consider retirement. Retirement isn't always a luxury afforded to hitmen though, especially when they have been as busy and successful as Joe. But when he is given bad news by a doctor, Joe decides the best thing to do is to put a contract on himself. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that he has a big reason to renegotiate, but Antoinette (Klementieff) isn't interested. She's sent out the call and a number of flamboyant killers have answered.

Apparently based on a book by Jay R. Bonansinga, The Killer's Game has a screenplay, written by Rand Ravich and James Coyne, that is one of the most derivative and tired I have encountered in the past year or two. The hitman ordering a hit on himself is standard stuff now, as is the change of circumstances coming along too late to stop the onslaught of greedy mercenary murderers, and everyone involved having their own quirky style makes it feel like something that would have been much more fun about twenty years ago, before that choice was used in far too many other movies.

Crews is a lot of fun in his role, and Scott Adkins has fun putting on a Scottish accent to work alongside Drew McIntyre, but they are the only ones who liven things up. Okay, Dylan Moran is an unexpected delight in his small role, playing a priest who receives quite the confession, and Kingston has a couple of amusing moments, but nobody else seems to stay awake in front of the cameras. Bautista seems very stilted and slow, and he has no chemistry with Boutella, who is hampered by being the love interest kept in the dark for most of the runtime. Klementieff fails to make her potential villain truly menacing or memorable, Kingsley is so low-key that he seems to have wandered in from a much calmer movie, and that covers the people who actually made any impression on me. 

Perry can showcase some action that feels visceral and impactful, but he even undermines that aspect of the film by trying to make everything more fun and funky with each main fight sequence choreographed to some pop song that, at best, ensures the film has zero tension and, at worst, reminds you of whenever tht song was used in some other, much better, movie.

The pacing isn't bad, some of the scenes look nice enough, and I am easily entertained by groups of people descending upon one another to engage in a mass brawl, but this is generally not worth your time. It's a huge disappointment, and every single main cast member has a handful of better films that you could enjoy checking out instead of this.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Climax (2018)

There are two directors I continue to watch films from, despite sometimes hating their output. One is Lars von Trier. The other is Gaspar Noé. The former has made movies in his past that were good enough for me to always hope he one day returns to that level of greatness. The latter, well, he has a habit of making films I dislike, grudgingly admire, and eventually warm to. Climax is his latest assault on the senses of cinephiles, and it may well be his best work yet.

The main premise is simple. A French dance troupe, led by Selva (Sofia Boutella), get together for a few days in an isolated location to create a memorable routine. At the end of a long day, they all unwind with a small party. There's a DJ spinning tunes, and plenty of sangria. Unfortunately, someone has spiked the sangria with LSD. This leads to a hell of a bad trip for many of the dancers, to put it mildly, and death will visit some of them before the party ends.

Largely improvised, and made in a way that was relatively quick and cheap, Climax is an impressive journey from sheer joy to outright terror. And it's very surprising to find Noé in a slightly restrained mode. Never the most subtle director, or the most overly concerned with the comfort of viewers, Noé seems to finally realise that he can upset and unnerve people without having to show every nasty little detail onscreen. But fans of his work need not be alarmed, this doesn't make the content here any less effective. Once Climax starts hurtling off the rails of sanity, it's an unstoppable juggernaut thrashing through a terrain of dread and distress.

It's also a gorgeous film. Seriously, the framing of certain moments, the flowing camerawork and the extended take that makes up most of the second half of the movie. It's a directorial trademark, of course, but works better here than it has in most of Noé's other movies, and I have to namecheck regular collaborator Benoît Debie for the luscious, perhaps even ever-so-slightly seductive, cinematography.

Although some individuals do stand out in certain scenes, and Boutella stands out as the performer with the most acting experience (as far as I'm aware), this is a group collaboration from start to finish. That includes a superb dance sequence in the opening act, the various conversations that take part between people as they relax during the party, and also any scenes featuring the dancers dancing, fighting, or fucking one another. The physicality is impressive throughout, and everyone involved should be praised for their commitment to the project, and their faith in Noé.

The other big thing to praise here is the fantastic soundtrack. Unrelenting for most of the runtime, it  helps to both lighten and darken the scenes (depending on what part of what song is playing). Those featured include Daft Punk, Gary Numan, Patrick Hernandez, M/A/R/R/S, Aphex Twin, Soft Cell, and a few more, so you can at least have happy ears while your eyes are being made to suffer.

8/10

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Hotel Artemis (2018)

We've had a lot of great action movies in recent years, and a number of them have taken the time to at least hint at an unseen criminal world running parallel to our own. Hotel Artemis is another film along those lines. It's a blend of sci-fi, action, and standard thriller stuff. It's not great though. Unfortunately, it struggles to even be good.

Jodie Foster plays The Nurse, the woman in charge of the titular building. It's a safe haven for criminals, an exclusive medical facility that has some hard rules in place for the safety of everyone who comes and goes. If you're not up to date with your subscription payments then you can't get in. You can't bring in weapons. And you don't hassle the staff (Foster and her right hand man, Dave Bautista). Of course, these rules all start to be broken on a night when one man (Sterling K. Brown, in a lead role that feels very much like a supporting one) turns up, wounded brother in tow, after a botched robbery. There's a riot in the city causing problems, a couple of other residents (Sofia Boutella and Charlie Day) not getting along too well, a wounded cop (Jenny Slate) in need of assistance, and a surprise visit from the wounded owner of the establishment (Jeff Goldblum).

Hotel Artemis is so close to being a good film that it's almost frustrating to consider how much it misses the mark. The cast are all very good, and very good in their roles (even Charlie Day, who I like in comedic work but sometimes seems miscast when in more serious roles), the hints at the unrest going on in society are intriguing, but never developed into anything more worthwhile, and the few scenes that show the more badass characters actually being badass are fun (although Bautista is sorely underused, and when will Sofia Boutella be given the action movie lead role that she deserves?).

Writer-director Drew Pearce spends far too much time showing that this is his first feature, and that most of his written work used him best as part of a team of creative minds working towards the same goal. There's a damaging lack of focus, an unearned confidence in the dialogue scenes (Foster and Goldblum may be enjoyable to just listen to as they speak but they still need to be given more than the cheesy and clichéd dialogue that they're given here), and a general inability to give any of the main players material that is worthy of their talents. I also had an issue with the way we were given the rules of the hotel, only for them to be broken with far too little time or pressure applied to the decisions.

Take a bunch of lesser-known names and this movie becomes a straight-to-disc time waster. With this cast, however, there's really no way it can be viewed as anything other than a disappointment. The only person who comes close to being used well is Boutella, and even that feels too little too late, in an action sequence during the third act that puts her front and centre.

5/10

You can buy the disc here.
Americans can buy it here.