BOSS LEVEL
US, 2021, 100 minutes, Colour.
Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Annabelle Wallis, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong, Selina Lo, Will Sasso, Rob Gronkowski.
Directed by Joe Carnahan.
Very easy to make recommendations/non-recommendations for this one. Strictly for Gamers – and for those with a Gaming sensibility. For audiences lacking this sensibility, they will be knocked out almost immediately!
We certainly know where we sit for this action adventure. For a long time, it plays like a computer game, our hero, Roy (a tough Frank Grillo, actually in his mid-50s but gym or special effects perfect, waking up, a woman in the bed (later revealed as a dental assistant!), A sword-wielder, a helicopter outside the window, machine gun fire, Roy leaping four stories onto a bus, and much, much more… So, this is a computer game.
And then it happens all over again (a touch of the spoiler: the scenario is repeated 250 times for Roy, and quite a lot of times for the audience).
Then, at last some explanation, which we are probably needing. It is clear to the audience that this is a variation on Groundhog Day. Ultimately, the scientific name will be given, The Osiris Spindle – which might well have been a much better title for the film, rousing curiosity.
The audience doesn’t quite know what all the explanation until the end – fair enough. It involves Mel Gibson, bearded and grizzled, as a retired Colonel, power-hungry, seemingly no financial impediment, employing a scientist to create a machine for world-domination. The scientist is played by Naomi Watts (one might ask watts Naomi doing in this kind of actioner!). We do find fairly quickly that she is Roy’s wife and they have a son whom Roy has neglected.
With this kind of background, off we go groundhogging yet again and again, Roy being disposed of by the various pursuers (although at one stage he does trap them and incinerate them all), action adventures throughout the city, then an action lull where he goes into a diner, where Chef Jake (Ken Jeong) is jokingly behind the counter. As Roy learns more and more, and is continually threatened by a sword champion, Selina Lo, he sees Michelle Yeoh sitting at a table and persuades her to train him in swordsmanship, an increasing number of groundhogging episodes confronting the champion until…
And, Roy does meet his son, bonding with him, bringing some more emotion and touches of tenderness into the story.
Lots of actions in computer games, lots of deadly characters, lots of killings, competitiveness, and here it is all in a narrative running for 100 minutes.
1. A film for gamers? Gamers’ sensibility?
2. The popularity of computer games, over the decades, changes and developments, accessibility, involvement, male players?
3. Science fiction, futuristic?
4. The Groundhog Day scenario? The Osiris Spindle? The repetition of the day, like a computer game, the violence, the deaths, the crises, the characters and situations, up to 250 repetitions?
5. The opening, the scenario of the day, the introduction to Roy, tough, military background, with the girl (later the revelation about her being dentist assistant and the tracker in his tooth), the sword attack, the helicopter and shooting, his leap onto the bus, the chase in the streets, Pam and her assistant, throwing the man out of the car? The dwarf? The later episodes towards midday, going to the bar, the jokiness with Jake, the proper discussions with Dave? Dave, knowledge, the extraction of the tooth, finding the tracker? The sword-wielding Guan- Lin?
6. The effect on the audience on the repetitions, the variations, the moments in which Roy dies, the variety of deaths?
7. The background, Roy and his relationship with Jemma, their son, her summoning him, her work, the science, the development of the Spindle, the supervision by the colonel, his surveillance, Brett and the others as his assistants? Sinister? His ambitions?
8. The range of assassins, the situation where Roy traps them all and destroys them?
9. Roy, learning more by each repeated day? Using it to his advantage? Surviving longer, discovering the tracker, being trained by the woman at the diner in swordsmanship? The increasing sword fights with his opponent?
10. His meeting his son, the time spent with him, getting to know him better, the boy and the games, competitions, avoiding school, comfortable with Roy?
11. The apocalyptic tone, the destruction of the world, Roy submitting to it, sitting in the park with his son?
12. Joe saying his mother called him in the morning, the later discovery that she was alive until 7.14? His previous encounters with the colonel, destroying Brett? The colonel explaining the experiment, Jemma’s intervention, sending Roy into the Spindle, Roy thwarting the program?
13. The scenes with Jemma, her love for Roy, her work, sending Roy into the Spindle, their working together, the solution for Roy to go back into the Spindle? And the film ending?
