“King of Killers” is a weird movie. Even though the film itself is a mediocre, poorly-paced action film, it’s supposed to be the basis for a new multimedia series. Stranger still is the fact that it’s based on a graphic novel that I couldn’t find much information about, so it might not even be released yet. In trying to craft a new universe before the first story is even out the door, creator Kevin Grevioux should have perhaps been more concerned with making sure this movie was worth franchising.

Marcus Garan is a professional hitman with a wife and young daughter who are unaware of his work. When one of his hits goes wrong, his wife is caught in the crossfire and killed. Around a year later, he is offered a contract to kill the world’s greatest assassin for $100 million, which Garan needs when his daughter is randomly hospitalized. It’s a series of cliches that make it hard to get through the first third of the movie, as the action is sparse and the number of interesting characters is even more sparse.

After Garan is sent to Tokyo to complete the job, he meets a group of killers who are there for the same reason. It’s revealed that they will be forced to compete to see who can kill the king of killers, the same man who hired them. While the concept is interesting, the lack of any interesting characters hurts the plot. By the time the movie hits the halfway point, it seems things have only started to get going, and even then the story doesn’t become all that interesting. The main villain, Jorg Drakos, is really the only character who is entertaining to watch.

When the competition begins, there are some impressive action scenes that are gory, exciting, and well-choreographed. These scenes seem to be modeled after movies like “The Equalizer” and “John Wick,” but they’re not as polished. If the whole movie was made of fun action scenes, then it might have ended up more entertaining than it actually is -- but they seem to be mainly added in at the end of the movie, with rather bland characters and slow pacing.

It makes sense that there’s a focus on characters and plot if this is to be a continuing story told through comics and a show, but as I said earlier, the only interesting character is Drakos. Garan has a cliche backstory, and he doesn’t have much of a character arc through the film. And the ending isn’t particularly satisfying, and instead opens up the likelihood for sequels -- sequels that this particular movie gives you no reason to want. 

While “King of Killers” isn’t necessarily a bad movie, it ends up as forgettable and one that tries to reach farther than it can grasp. If you’re searching for new action movies, then this might do, but you also might be better off re-watching another film on your watchlist.

Author Bio:

Ulises Duenas is a senior writer at Highbrow Magazine.

For Highbrow Magazine