Rating: B-
Dir: Nick McKinless
Star: Scott Adkins, Jack Parr, Madalina Bellariu Ion, Alice Eve
You wait ages for a new Adkins movie, then two show up at once. Literally the same day The Killer’s Game hit VOD, also saw the streaming release of this. Both see him playing an assassin and are directed by a former stuntman. What are the odds? Yet in some ways, it’s the differences which are more interesting. This is, obviously, a far smaller scale production. Outside of Adkins, Eve is likely the only other name you might recognize, and the majority of this takes place in one location. Yet, I enjoyed this as much, despite a generally weaker script here, which on occasion triggered its share of eye-rolling. Probably the big difference is, Atkins > Dave Bautista.
Here, he plays sniper Sam Lorde, who suffers a crisis of conscience and decides to quit the business after one last job for his boss, Tamara (Eve). Except, it doesn’t go as planned. He and spotter Ken (Parr) find themselves pinned down in a penthouse apartment with floor to ceiling windows, unable to move from behind the conveniently bullet-proof sofas. The only help is a couple of “masseuses” (Ion and Alba De Torrebruna), and while everyone survives the initial, far-range assault, it is only the beginning of a long night. Because the person behind the attack has the entire building under their control, and has a lot of cannon fodder they are willing to throw into the elevator which goes up to the penthouse.
It’s a little reminiscent of Everly, in which Salma Hayek was similarly trapped in an apartment and forced to fend off waves of attackers. It is obviously a contrived scenario – if you genuinely wanted Sam and Ken dead, there are considerably easier, more effective ways to do it – and you won’t be shocked to discover who’s behind the attack either. The method by which Sam looks to escape is… yeah. All told, it’s nice eight-year-olds are allowed to write scripts these days. However, within its limitations, McKinless (making his directorial debut, after 25 years doing stunts, most recently as a coordinator on Fast X) does a fine job of keeping things interesting, within the limited spaces of the apartment.
Beyond the action, Adkins brings a nice humanity to his role. The taciturn hitman, on one final mission, is very much a cliché, yet there are some wrinkles to it here which help it rise above. When a hit results in collateral damage (I half expected the victim to be the reason why he gets bountied), Sam ends up wondering whether or not he is one of the good guys. There’s also an odd scene where a wolf comes out of the woods and just stares at Sam. While I’m not sure what it meant, I can’t deny it was cool. I’m glad Adkins appears to be doing bigger-budget films as well as quirky little ones; I hope he continues, because there’s something to be said for both.
This review is part of Project Adkins, covering the movies of Scott Adkins.