Boss Level

Boss Level (2021) is about a man killed at the same moment every morning. Roy Pulver is former Delta Force; the instant he wakes an assassin comes through his door, and across the day he is killed by a series of different people. The next day starts at the same moment again. He has counted more than a hundred deaths and starts working out why he is a target. The idea is to build a time loop on video game logic. Roy gets a little further with each death, memorises each killer's moves, and picks up from there next time. The title comes from that. Joe Carnahan directed. Frank Grillo plays Roy and is one of the producers. Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts and Michelle Yeoh are also in it. Getting it seen was difficult. The project waited years for a distributor, was eventually picked up by Hulu and went out on the platform on 5 March 2021, with no cinema release. There is a swordfighter in the choreography and those scenes are the best in the film; Michelle Yeoh plays the sword master who trains him. It runs 101 minutes. Good for: time loop action, Frank Grillo, and fast genre filmmaking. Less good for: the balance between comedy and violence never settles; the film tries to be funny and moving and does not quite manage either. The father and son subplot is forced. The villain's scheme is a cliché and there is no scientific explanation.