Boss Level
2020
**
Director: Joe Carnahan
Cast: Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Annabelle Wallis, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong, Will Sasso, Selina Lo, Meadow Williams, Rio Grillo
A former soldier is forced to relive the same day over and over. Each day, he attempts to stay alive long enough to figure out what is going on and why a group of professional assassins are out to get him. The script by Chris Borey, Eddie Borey, and Joe Carnahan unconvincingly manages to answer why it's all happening but not why the bad guy so badly wants to kill the hero. So we can have non-stop action is the answer, I suppose. This derivative time loop action movie is closer to the live-die-repeat scenario of Edge of Tomorrow than the smart comedy of Groundhog Day, which launched this entire subgenre. However, my problem is that the unpleasant protagonist is too cool and ironically detached to carry the weight of the story. He does eventually learn to become a better person, but there is little room for growth for a guy who is a seasoned killer already at the start of the story. Frank Grillo is charmless and Naomi Watts and Michelle Yeoh are completely wasted in their underwritten cameos.
