The Movie Guru: ‘Speak No Evil’ still disturbing, while ‘The Killer’s Game’ plays with genre
Universal Studios/Courtesy photo
Speak No Evil (in theaters)
The “Speak No Evil” remake hitting theaters now is slightly less dark and disturbing than the 2022 Danish original, but only by comparison.
Both versions are what would happen if you took an embarrassment comedy and pushed it past every single boundary there is, all of it designed to ask the question: “Are the social conventions of being polite/a good guest worth opening yourself up to being tortured/murdered?” The results are designed to crawl under your skin and deeply mess with your brain, though the Danish version (now streaming on Shudder) takes it to such a disturbing, bleak ending that even horror fans have written about how much it messed them up.
The American version doesn’t do that, taking the final third and veering into more traditional horror territory that still manages to be frightening even if it’s not quite soul-destroying. A lot of those scares come from James McAvoy’s performance as the couple’s overly gregarious host, gregarious and seemingly friendly with something wrong shining out from underneath. It’s almost a relief when he lets the monster out, with McAvoy tapping into the bestial territory he used so well in “Split” and “Filth” and dialing it up to 11.
It’s a less thematically sharp ending than the original but offers a twisted sense of catharsis. Sometimes, that feels like a fair trade.
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Grade: Three stars
The Killer’s Game (in theaters)
You remember those old action movies with Steven Seagal? Imagine swapping him out with a much better actor, then fusing that with a violent comedy and a genuinely tender and somewhat angsty love story.
That’s the experience of watching “The Killer’s Game,” which is somehow both so traditional and so offbeat that it’s surprisingly hard to classify. It weaves through its three genres with the same amount of dedication, starting with the action and romance before adding the comedy with a bang for the back half of the film. You have to like all three of its chosen genres to buy into the film, but if you do it’s a lot of fun.
Dave Bautista stars as Joe Flood, a professional hitman out on a job during a high-end ballet performance. After another shooter causes panic among the crowd, he has a meet-cute with the lead ballet dancer and they start a relationship. When Joe finds out he’s dying, however, he concocts a wild plan to make sure his love is taken care of — he’ll take a hit out on himself, then fake insurance money that he can give to her.
The movie turns out to be nowhere near as dark as the summary suggests, though the romance plot does push it for some surprisingly well-done angst. The whole romance is oddly sweet, with Sofia Boutella a radiant treasure and Bautista open and sensitive in a way I hadn’t known he was capable of. Of course, he’s also great in the fight scenes, which are never long enough but have all the mayhem you could want.
Add in fun turns by Ben Kingsley, Terry Crews, and Pom Klementieff, and you’ve got a movie that’s hard to classify but fun to watch.
Grade: Three stars
Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find her on Twitter at @wardellwriter or drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.
