King of Killers

The 2023 movie "King of Killer", from writer and director Kevin Grevioux, was one I hadn't heard about. But as I happened to stumble upon it by random luck here in 2024, of course I opted to watch it.

First of all, the movie's cover had a particular late 1980s and early 1990s feel to it, which drew me in. And seeing that Frank Grillo was on the cast list, certainly helped to make me watch the movie as well.

The storyline in "King of Killers" was adequate. It was a bit on the simplistic side. But it made for an adequate enough viewing experience. However, I must say that it is hardly a movie that warrants more than just a single viewing. There wasn't really anything new brought to the screen here, as it has all been seen and done before in other movies, and often more successfully.

The acting performances in the movie were good. I was only familiar with Frank Grillo, Stephen Dorff and Kevin Grevioux on the cast list.

There was a good amount of action throughout the course of the movie, and that is certainly what carried the most of the movie, given the somewhat weak storyline.

Ultimately a watchable movie, but hardly an outstanding or memorable movie.

My rating of "King of Killers" lands on a five out of ten stars.

This movie proves that making a movie "just like John Wick" is as easy as riding a bicycle.

Except the bicycle has no wheels. The pedals are bent. The bike is on fire. You're on fire. The world is on fire.

This movie should be shown in every film school on Hollywood as a good example why one should NEVER cast themselves in a key role in a film they both wrote and directed. You are going to end up saying some of the dumbest lines ever written in all seriousness while the audience kills themselves laughing.

We watched this with our son and his fellow friends with LA Sheriffs Department and it ended up, not surprising, as a drinking game. One sip every time they did something laughably stupid in the movie and I think they were all looped by about the first hour. We were hoping it would get better near the end. No, it got worse.

My favorite scene was when they assassins were all hit in the chest with a laser dot, and - like every stupid, low budget action movie ever made - they all looked down.

In real life it would have been easy to track the progress of every killer by all the live ammunition they left lying on the ground. A shotgun was pumped FIVE times before it was shot once ... TWICE in the film. The magic Mossberg with the four-round magazine that was fired a total of 32 rounds without reloading. The visual effect muzzle flashes that were so low rent, they didn't even bother lining them up with the actual muzzle or differentiate the shape with the direction the gun was pointed. The plastic guns from the local dollar store where they didn't even try to hide the BB gun barrel.

I don't know where this movie was made but it was pretty obvious to all of us that they couldn't afford a technical advisor and they hired an armorer who's only qualification must be that he watched the Simpsons episode where Homer joins the NRA.

Read all the reviews here that report actors taking themselves WAY too serious, a really bad script, awful direction and cartoon-like actions. Take heart. You were warned.

Mind you, we watched it until the end. Thankfully, we had enough places for our son and his friends to sleep because none of them could drive home after the "King" of drinking games in watching for stupidity in scenes.

Hitman Marcus Garan (Alain Moussi) gets recruited to join the best assassins in the world on a job. It is revealed that their target is the most elusive and yet unseen assassin Jorg Drakos (Frank Grillo). Then their employer reveals that he is Jorg Drakos and he intends to prove that he is the best.

The concept is actually kind of fun. Whatever potential it has is lost with really bland filmmaking. It's all rather boring. There is some fighting, some gun play, and some action. Everything in between is a lot of nothingness. The acting is poor. The writing is bland. It is a bad B-movie action thriller.

This is definitely no Oscar winning film; however, it holds entertainment value for sure. Its a sit back and watch some meatheads kill each other kind of flick. The acting outside of Stephen Dorf, Frank Grillo and the protagonist is not professional.

If you are looking for an hour and a half of mindless gunslinging and martial arts this might be for you. The happy 'family' moments showing how happy the protagonist is before his family gets wrecked is predictable and skippable.

If you can look beyond all of that and are just here for the fights then you might be good with this one. They seem to have also set it up for a sequel, but don't hold your breath on that one. 6/10.

The movie is 1 and a half hour, and it only starts to get going around the hour mark.. with too much preamble that isn't worth the wait.

But if you enjoy scarce "stock" cinematic shots of cities, with vibrant sun-showered colors and clarity that don't match the rest of the movie.. you might take something out of it. Otherwise, prepare yourselves for incredibly awful and long-winded villain dialogue, obscured dull action, bad CGI squibs, generic sound mixing and crappy editing (particularly the 90s TV transitions), a charmless band of boring assassins and an unsatisfying dumb ending.

The premise of an Assassin's tournament could have been fun if done well.. but by defining a main character with a tragic backstory that pushes him forward makes for bad storytelling in such context. Not to mention their plans for a sequel that is probably not happening! Not to say that the story going forward wouldn't be enticing at all.

Too cheap in all departments, can't recommend anyone waste their time.