Director: Martin Owen
Writer: Seth Johnson, Elizabeth Morris, Martin Owen (Screenplay)
Starring: Tommy Flanagan, Jessica Alba, Gary Oldman, Rhyon Nicole Brown, Tim McInnerny, Suki Waterhouse, Sam Hazeldine
Plot: A support group of killers is held regularly. The participants sit in a circle of trust and share their transgressions.
Tagline – Take It One Slay At A Time
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Not as Slick as it Thinks it is
Story: Killers Anonymous starts with the assassination attempt of a Senator, the assassins involved are going to a private support meeting which only contains fellow assassins, where the killers can talk about their murders, with the newest member of the group Alice (Brown) getting to meet the paranoid members.
When The Man (Oldman) learns that the assassination failed, he wants answers which see the different members of the support group trying to figure out who is to blame for their failures and needing to clean up the messes left behind.
Thoughts on Killers Anonymous
Characters – The Man is the assassin’s handler, he puts them in the right place and deals with things when things go wrong, he is on his latest operation which has a connection to everything going on. Markus is one of the more experienced assassins that is at the meeting, he isn’t happy with new faces arriving in his meeting. Alice is the mysterious new member at the meeting, she doesn’t say much which only makes the other assassin’s question who and why she is there. Jade is one of the assassins that works under the Man, she has made a mistake because of her own personal life, which has only annoyed The Man.
Performances – This movie does have a big cast and is one that is using the biggest names to try and sell the movie, Gary Oldman isn’t in the film that much, the same can be sad for Jessica Alba, Tommy Flanagan does get top billing even though he is only one of many in the support group, with only Rhyon Nicole Brown having anything part of mystery about her character.
Story – The story here follows a group of killers that meet to discuss what happened to make the latest job go wrong, this is a regular occurrence, well the meetings are, but soon things start to unravel to show us just what is happening, why the new woman is in the meeting and what went wrong. This is where the story is trying to become a fancy slick mystery, but in reality it is failing to capture this on so many different levels, it is one of those crime mysteries which tries to make everything single moment mean something that could turn the story on its head, only to end up giving us too many characters to focus on, without giving us enough information to make the characters interesting enough to care about.
Action/Crime/Mystery – The action in this film is saved for two main fight sequences, which are almost blink and you miss them, while the crime world does show us just how the killers could operate, the mystery in the film is the highlight because we get to see just who could be trusted or who can’t be.
Settings – Most of the film is set in the one building, during the meeting and around the breaks, this does help contain the problem they are facing, only for it to not give us enough to see for what could be a bigger prospective film.
Scene of the Movie – Church fight.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Too many assassins talking mostly nothing important.
Final Thoughts – This is a film that believes it is one of the slickest of the year, it never gets close to being that and only ends up leaving us disappointed.
Overall: Gives killers a bad name.
Rating
