The Killers Game, adapted from the Jay Bonansinga novel of the same name, is a wildly fun and entertaining premise. When the film finally decides to get there.

Everything about The Killers Game feels like a straight-to-streaming action flick. The stars, Dave Bautista and Sofia Boutella, have already starred in some of Netflix’s biggest budget productions, and the rest of the cast is filled out with “Oh look who it is” cameos. The Killers Game John Wick adjacent plot is a great vehicle for an action comedy. Unfortunately, the film takes forever to reach its driving conflict.

Surviving The Game

The Killers Game begins with a super slick action sequence of hitman Dave Bautista performing a hit at the Opera. Joe Flood, the assassin played by Bautista, suffers from extreme headaches throughout the sequence and decides a trip to the doctor is in order. Meanwhile, he meets the gorgeous Maize played by Sofia Boutella at this very same hit and the two start a passionate romance.

Joe Flood, amid his whirlwind romance, receives some devastating news from the doctor. He has at best three months to live. He decides rather than shrivel up and die, he’s going to instate a life insurance policy for Maize and hire a hit on himself with the most notorious group of hitmen in the world. One minute before the contract on Flood begins, he gets a call from his doctor saying his results were switched. Joe Flood will live a long and happy life, as long as he stops all the deadly assassins out to get him first.

Spoiling The Narrative

This entire setup is succinctly spoiled in the two-minute trailer for The Killers Game which has been playing for months. It’s a strong premise that allows Bautista’s Flood to fight against a formidable goon squad of killers in an action comedy. It’s also a premise that most of the audience will be aware of going into the film. Assuming they’ve seen a trailer. The problem is that the film takes almost half its 104-minute runtime to deliver this setup.

If you went into The Killers Game perfectly blind, maybe the first half of this movie works. The wrongfooting of Joe Flood’s diagnosis, the difficult decision he makes to leave Maize, and the eventual reveal that he will be fine, could allow work in an action flick. But when we are all acutely aware of the premise after marketing has flooded audiences with the setup and plot of this movie, for the film to then spend almost half its runtime providing reveals done better in a two-minute trailer is bizarre.

Fighting In The Killers Game

Once the plot does finally get going, the film isn’t bad. The gang of killers director J.J Perry brings are often over the top and very funny. WWE Superstar Drew McIntyre is a standout as an impossible-to-understand Irishman, and Terry Crews is giving a quintessential Terry Crews performance.

While the characters are fun and interesting to see in battle with Bautista, the showdowns between them are rushed and unsatisfying. The film spends so much laying out its spoiled premise that when it’s finally time for the big showdown, it ends as quickly as it begins. Most of these crazy characters are seen on screen twice. Once in a minute or two introduction, then again in a four-minute or less fight scene where they are killed. No one is expecting a Shakespearian level of villainy, but the main conflict of the film is so condensed in the last half that we aren’t able to have any fun with it.

Marketing The Plot

The Killers Game is in a bit of a no-win situation when it comes to its marketing. The trailer has to explain to audiences that this is an action comedy with Dave Bautista fighting dozens of silly assassins. To do that, the trailer needs to reveal its premise. But that premise is half the film. When we know he’s going to be diagnosed and then swiftly undiagnosed, the reveals and heartfelt moments in the first half of the film fall flat. But if the film marketing tries to hide these reveals, then audiences enter and receive an entirely different move than what they were expecting.

I believe the second scenario would have been a much better play for The Killers Game. Dave Bautista and Sofia Boutella may not have the name recognition of some of their peers but they would certainly get some butts in seats. Or at the very least cause curious people to stream it on Netflix. The Killers Game feels like a straight-to-streaming title and it should have been. Going into a movie like this with no proclivity to the plot other than a poster or thumbnail is the way this movie should be watched. It was also made for a modest 30 million dollars. A fraction of the cost of Dave Bautista and Sofia Boutellas Zack Snyder directed straight-to-Netflix films.

Saving The Killers Game

Had this film been released on Netflix or another streamer, it probably would have performed and reviewed a lot better. There is undoubtedly less pressure for a movie to perform on a streamer and the film wouldn’t have been ruined by its marketing.

On the flip, The Killers Game could have been a great theater movie had it spent more time on its plot than its setup. If the promotion plan is to ruin the movie’s big setup, then the movie can’t take fifty minutes to get there. The three meet-cutes we get with Bautista and Botella, the multiple montages of killing and falling in love, are all overkill for a movie that needs to reach its premise as quickly as possible. The Killers Game has fun when it gets there, it just makes us sit through a fifty-minute trailer first.