Boss Level (2020)

Boss Level (2020)

6/10

Starring

Frank Grillo

Mel Gibson

Naomi Watts

 

Directed by Joe Carnahan

 

Boss Level starts off like the name describes a video game, we see a character get up from bed and deal with an assassin with little to no effort. He gets up, gets dressed, makes coffee while still bobbing and weaving away from the assassin’s punches and knife slashes.

You already get the feel that he seems to know where the sent killer will be and do. Then he starts to give us a little bio of his present predicament. This character’s name is Roy (Frank Grillo) and he is stuck in a time loop. He further lets us know he is unable to get through a day without getting killed, the movie starts at his seventy-nineth attempt.

Boss Level is good for the fact that I was able to follow along and the movie packs a mystery. There are many things you are left to discover first on your own before Roy gets off his selfish ass and catches up. So, in that sense the movie can be predictable and at times the movie drags.

The movie’s pacing is alright for the first half, then it gets muddled up as the movie gets going. I did not find the cinematography tasteful at all, I felt it could be better and some of the lines were just…

After we witness his death on the seventy-nineth attempt we get more info into the life of Roy. He is not the best character there is, when we meet his ex-wife, we discover that she is involved in a revolutionary scientific breakthrough. She fears for her life and that of their son when the breakthrough is done and sends clues to Roy to find a way to save her. When Roy finds himself in the loop, he tries to find her only to discover that she had died, moments before. He also finds himself on the constant run from assassins from the moment he wakes up until the time he is killed and he goes through it again.

This will be the second Mel Gibson movie I have seen this week, and even though I did not like the first [Fatman (2020)], this I pretty much enjoyed. The movie takes the time loop thing on a different ride than I am used to. It reminds me of the time loop that is in Edge of Tomorrow (2014), where the lead only gets to redo the day when he dies. That should give you a guess that there were times when things don’t go Roy’s way, he just offs himself.

The ending when he had to take on the boss gives me the feel of the movie Equilibrium (2002).

You can catch this movie on Hulu, it is not the best time loop movie for sure, but it will pass as good entertainment.