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Canberra Today 15°/18° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Movie review / ‘Boss Level’ (MA)

“Boss Level” (MA) half a star

SO, what happens in this Hollywood sci-fi time shift actioner? The IMDb gives it short shrift in a single sentence: “A retired special forces officer is trapped in a never ending time loop on the day of his death.” 

And lists the main elements of the plot – “dying repeatedly | end of the world | one against many | time loop | based on video game.” And “Gone today, here tomorrow”.

To which I add, boring. The same old same old day in the life of Roy (Frank Grillo) who spends it wishing he could escape the cycle.

So did I. Director Joe Carnahan tries to inject sparkle into a screenplay by Chris and Eddie Borey by spreading titles across the screen telling the audience that this is the so-many-th day of Roy’s torment. 

Yes, it would have been tormenting to die every day only to wake up the next day and repeat the whole sad experience. 

The only way Roy is going to escape is to go through a Hollywood-style machine run by his girlfriend Jemma (Naomi Watts). But first he has to deal with his former Special Forces boss Col. Ventor (Mel Gibson). I sat numb and dumb-founded waiting for that happy event. 

There is an audience for movies like this. I have a standard response whenever people tell me they envy me for seeing so many movies: “Yes, but I see a lot of bad ones.”

After completion of production in August, 2019, “Boss Level” didn’t open in America until a week after its Australian season began. We can only conjecture about possible reasons for the delay. 

At all cinemas

 

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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