Boss Level (2021)

Didn’t really know what this movie was when I got it but I have to say that it was a quite fun action romp and although I am usually very much against time travel stories this one worked for me.
As the name implies the movie kind of plays out like a first person shooter game. Start, run and shoot, die, rinse, restart and repeat. I know, it sound rather boring but it actually works. There’s enough variation in each run to make it interesting and each iteration advances the story and adds another piece to the puzzle.
Obviously there is a lot of action in this movie and it is good and fun action. Luckily they didn’t try to go for some silly PG-13 or TV-PG rating. This is a mature audience movie and both the language and the action is for adults and not the whining easily offended variety of adults. Heads fly, people explode and bullet wholes appear in all kinds of places.
At the same time it is fun, over the top and sometimes quite comical action. The background voice from the main protagonist and his matter of fact but also “I’m tired of this bullshit” attitude is adding nicely to the fun-factor.
There is a story underneath all of this, believe it or not, and it’s actually not that bad. Sure there are holes in it large enough to drive a battleship through but it doesn’t really matter. The story is good enough to drive the movie and the action forward and the movie makes no pretense of having any form of science or such logic in it anyway. It’s kind of a over the top action version of Groundhog Day with first person shooter elements.
Frank Grillo is doing a good job of being the bored, violent main protagonist and it was rather fun seeing Mel Gibson again even though he, unfortunately, was one of the bad guys. The rest of the actors, well they are more or less as forgettable as they are expendable (over and over again).
It is a fun movie clearly meant to entertain by showering the audience in outrageous (violent) action stunts and some snarky dialogue and it succeeds quite well in achieving this.

At its core, the model is still the Phil Connors self-improvement plan. In trying to finally make it to tomorrow, will Roy become a better father, a better ex-husband, a better version of himself? 28 years ago, Murray and writer/director Harold Ramis wrung this ingenious conceit for everything it was worth. All a diverting riff like 'Boss Level' can do is throw a few sword fights and bazookas in with the recycled pleasures and hope they look like its own. It's inchoate, but mostly fun.
- Jake Watt
Read Jake's full article...
https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-boss-level-nostalgic-action-and-quirky-foes