Dave Bautista spills blood in a romantic action comedy

In 2023, Dave Bautista made headlines by lamenting never having received an offer to star in a romantic comedy. He said he looks in the mirror and asks himself, “Is there something unattractive about me that excludes me from these roles?” The admission was a shame, because Bautista – indisputably the Marlon Brando of wrestlers-turned-actors – has all the qualities you could want in a rom-com star. In supporting roles like a goofy alien in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, a bloated influencer in “Glass Onion” and a quiet disciple of God in “Knock at the Cabin,” Bautista has demonstrated great comedic timing, an impressive and effortless screen presence and a surprising sensitivity that makes him and his hulking frame attractive.

Unfortunately, Bautista has yet to get a straight-up romantic comedy. But while it's probably not the kind of film he had in mind when he first asked to be America's Sweetheart, The Killer's Game comes closer than expected. The R-rated film from stunt choreographer-turned-director JJ Perry is a bloody action comedy that struggles to blend its two disparate genres into a cohesive whole. Interestingly, though, the film is at its best not when it engages Bautista in bloody fights, but when it lets the actor do his best Hugh Grant impersonation as a sad sack looking for love.

On paper, Joe Flood isn't your typical romantic comedy lead, but he perfectly embodies the essential core of the archetype: he's lonely, attached to his job, and desperate for company. The biggest difference is that he's not working as a journalist or an architect, but as the deadliest and most famous assassin in all of Europe, traveling the continent from his Budapest base of operations to kill criminals and other assassins with ruthless efficiency. That kind of work has left Joe somewhat socially relegated, so much so that when he first meets her early in the film—as he escorts modern dancer Maizie (Sofia Boutella) out of her concert hall after a shootout he instigated—he can barely form words with her, especially when she gives him her phone number and invites him to dinner.

The film relies heavily on humor and sweetness early on, as Joe comes out of his shell to court the far more expressive Maizie, a decision that works quite well because Bautista is such a natural in that element. He can turn a cliched scene of Joe ruminating on an opening line to Maizie into something funny and fresh just through his sighs and body language. With Boutella, he finds a natural, easy chemistry that overcomes the extremely superficial portrayal of Maizie. And it's mildly amusing to watch a romantic comedy through the lens of a brutal action movie: Ben Kingsley provides some laughs as Joe's caregiver, who also doubles as a best friend who urges his pal to find love by quoting Dolly Parton lyrics to him.

The film seems to be having fun in this mode, too, as it takes far too long to get to the main plot thrust: Joe is diagnosed with a rare chronic brain disease for which there is no known cure. Desperate, he takes out life insurance and orders an assassination attempt on himself from rival contract broker Marianna (Bautista's old Guardians scene partner Pom Klementieff, having fun with his limited screen time), who is only too happy to do the job, as she bears a grudge against the man for killing her father long ago. He then leaves Maizie to protect her in a wildly melodramatic scene that includes dialogue like “When you're on your deathbed, remember what you had and what you threw away.”

This scene sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise entirely unserious film, but it leads to the film's funniest scandal, when Joe sends Maizie an effusive voice message declaring his love, only to receive an urgent call from his doctor telling him there's been a mix-up at the lab and Joe has been misdiagnosed: his recent frequent headaches aren't a harbinger of his impending death, but a sign that he might want to get some glasses. He gets the news at a very inopportune time: Marianna has already called in a gang of killers who have put a hefty $4 million bounty on Joe's head, including sniper Lovedahl (an amusing if underrated Terry Crews), and she's not about to call them back just because Joe's circumstances have changed. So to protect himself and Maizie from the killers, Joe must crack his knuckles and shed some blood.

This premise is a lot of fun, but as it progresses, Perry's film fails to make the most of it. The world it places us in feels frustratingly underdeveloped: imagine a rather half-baked, boring version of the assassin community in the “John Wick” films, where every assignment is given via a phone app. (The film's title comes from the terminology Joe and his colleagues use to describe the assassination business as a game where you either “get out clean” or “get out high and dry.”) The pacing is shaky, the set-up taking an inordinate amount of time while the actual conflict between Joe and the assassins is rushed through at a dizzying pace. Most of the assassins are introduced via stylized intros with their names written comic-book style in smoke/neon/cocaine/blood/etc. It's a fun choice until you realize that these cutscenes make up 70 percent of the running time of most of these antagonists.

Things aren't much better when Joe faces the other hitman. Perry gives the film a slick but forgettable look (Budapest has never been more anonymous in a film than here), but his experience as a stunt choreographer shows in some of the inventive and fluid hand-to-hand combat Bautista delivers. There's a pleasant satisfaction in seeing how bloody the film gets, with severed limbs and blood pouring rapidly from necks. But all too often the fights are unexciting, landing in competent and uninspired territory; a fight with a ballroom dancer is dishearteningly lacking in genuinely interesting choreography, and too many of the confrontations end with a quick and easy explosion for the sake of something more memorable. The final fight is so blunt or escalating compared to what came before that it's a mild surprise to realize this is the last big scene before the film hastily concludes.

Since the action part of the action comedy is mostly a bust, the comedy and romance have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. And “The Killer's Game” is genuinely funny, with amusing bits like Joe's confession of his long, long list of sins to a priest that are snappy, fast-paced and laugh-inducing. The romance, however, despite its strong start, begins to wilt and frustrate as the film progresses, as it leaves the titillating territory of romantic comedy and takes on a more dramatic tone. Perhaps the turnaround would work better if Boutella had more to do. An action-movie veteran, the Algerian star is certainly working with a more competent script than in her recent work, “Rebel Moon,” but she's stranded in a nothing role that often frustrates with her blind devotion to Joe and a disappointing lack of opportunities to kick ass herself. In “The Killer's Game,” Dave Bautista finally gets a great turn in a romantic comedy. So it's a shame that the lead actress in this comedy doesn't get the same chance to really take off.

Grade: C+

Lionsgate will release “The Killer's Game” in theaters on Friday, September 13th.

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