Back as promised, threatened, with a review of the second time-loop movie I saw tonight on Hulu -- Boss Level. It was surprisingly good.
Surprising, because it started off as almost a parody, and a ridiculous one, of both action movies and time-loop movies. But Boss Level is one of these movies that gets better and better as it goes along -- in this case, no small feat, because it's a time-loop story after all, with the same scenes over and over again -- and in the end, we have one impressive, excellent movie, packed with all sorts of goodies.
First, Boss Level is a science fiction not a fantasy time-loop narrative (see my review earlier this evening of Palm Springs for more on that). Second, or maybe part of the first point, the hero Roy actually makes a hard-won progress as he lives and dies and lives and dies again, day after day. His opponent, the evil Colonel Ventor played by Mel Gibson, sends all manner of master assassins against Roy. And every time or two he gets killed, he learns how to combat the assassin and move ever closes to winning the life-and-death game. If this sounds like video game, Boss Level in a sense is, and in any case video games play an important role in the movie.
Mel Gibson isn't the only star in Boss Level. Naomi Watts, Annabelle Wallis, and Michelle Yeoh also put in good appearances, and after all is said and done, I liked Frank Grillo's performance as Roy more and more as the movie progressed, just like the movie itself.
There still was a lot over the top in Boss Level, like the end of the world itself being at stake. But the movie left us with some pretty good lines like "yesterday was months ago," and ended on an appropriately ambiguous note, which leaves room for a sequel. Count me in for a view and a review.
Thought I'd check in with a review of Peaky Blinders, two seasons in with a BBC production, available in the United States on Netflix, and telling the story of a gang in Birmingham, England, same name as the show, a few years after World War I.
