Streaming Review: Boss Level
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 at 7:29PM 
Groundhog Day is becoming its own genre of film. Groundhog Day as a horror film -> Happy Death Day. Groundhog Day as a sci-fi war film -> Edge of Tomorrow. Groundhog Day as an existential romantic comedy -> Palm Springs. Joe Carnahan's Boss Level continues this new tradition as the violent action film edition. It does this while maintaining a fun tone and never crossing over into offensiveness.
Frank Grillo stars as Roy Pulver, a former special forces soldier who wakes up every morning with people trying to kill him...
There is the machete-wielding guy when he wakes up, the helicopter with a minigun outside his apartment window, and the countless assassins who chase him down when he runs away. Roy has no idea why this is happening, but he usually can't make it past noon before dying and starting again.
Roy is tired and annoyed by all this. He doesn't care much about getting out of the timeloop, but just wants to know why this is all happening. He recalls the day before when he visits his ex-wife Jemma (Naomi Watts) at her office. She is working on something called the Osiris Spindle under the watchful eye of Colonel Clive Ventor (Mel Gibson). Jemma clips off some of Roy's hair and he leaves none the wiser.
Roy narrates his daily experiences to put the true toll of this monotony into perspective. If his mind drifts and focuses on something else in the morning, he's dead and has to start again. He extols how often he had to get the timing down before he is successfully able to land in a passing sand truck after jumping from his window. As in Palm Springs, our hero shares how painful some deaths can be (especially sword-related ones in this case).
Grillo plays all this pretty straight, but he is still funny. The physicality is naturally there, but the leading man charisma is the biggest surprise. Roy is harsh, violent and jagged, but he still exudes likeability. Every day, he carjacks the same man and mocks his primal scream almost every time. One-liners aren't his thing; he's too tired for all of that. Grillo is in almost every scene and commands your attention, but perhaps sensing his limitations, he doesn't try to overdo anything and sticks primarily to the punching and shooting.
Elsewhere the casting is less successful. It feels almost criminal to have an actress of Watts' caliber in a film for just ten minutes with such a thankless role. A few other famous faces pop up and disappear as quickly as they arrived. Ken Jeong plays a bartender for no reason whatsoever. Annabelle Wallis is a lady at a bar. When Michelle Yeoh shows up, you get excited knowing her potential. But alas, she also is there to just move the plot forward. Even Mel Gibson, billed as the main villain, doesn't get much of note to do. He growls a few lines about controlling time and power, but the film itself accentuates our indifference; In the middle of this monologue, Roy complains in voiceover about how dumb the speech is.
On a more positive note, the various assassins run the gamut of race and gender. There is a Chinese swordswoman, a pair of female assassins, black German twins, a hillbilly with a spear gun, and even a dwarf with an affinity for explosives. As Roy dispatches each (or is dispatched by them), he does so without insult or offense. He doesn't care about being killed by a woman and even calls the dwarf by the correct name. Other filmmakers (like Guy Ritchie) will lean into the inherent racism or sexism of character interactions; Boss Level avoids this completely and doesn't even act like it was hard to work around.
The action itself is well-paced and frenetic, while the violence is prevalent but not grisly. The violence is more matter-of-fact than invasive of gross. The general idea of how Roy got stuck in the time loop is intentionally superfluous. (When it comes to time travel, the less explained the better.)
Action films have seen a renaissance lately and Boss Level does nothing to sully that momentum. At a brisk 93 minutes, your time is well spent in an enjoyable setting with a strong leading man punching and shooting his way through day after monotonous day.
Boss Level is now streaming on Hulu.
Reader Comments (9)
My God this sounds terrible
What the hell happened to Naomi Watts" career ? Seriously, I'm still waiting for her to win an Oscar but since The Impossible she's only been in one decent movie ( Ophelia) a very good one (Luce) and a great one (Birdman) and then....Boss Level. WTF?
This film feels like it was made by an algorithm. Marvel c-level action star with show on netflix + former bond girl/badass + 40-something oscar-nominated wife + popular 90s protagnist as a baddie + beloved sci-fi trope.
That said, Frank Grillo, who is a fine action star, is extremely attractive. I'm not totally sure I'll watch, but maybe after Oscar season?
No, thank you.
Thanks for the write up, Ben!
Frank Grillo is very charismatic, likable actor, and its great to see him getting work. (Though this film...?) A workhorse actor since the 1990s, he really broke out 10 years ago thanks to "Warrior." Since then, he's parlayed that role to working Marvel films, his own MMA-themed television series, and about two dozen films where he's still steadily working his way up to being a reliable lead in B-level action films.
Grillo is the kind of actor I could see nominated for Supporting Actor one day, in a role not too dissimilar to Nick Nolte's in "Warrior."
You're delusional, Graham.
Looks like Rainy Day fun.
@forever1267
Nailed it
Bring on 1000% more Michelle yeoh in 2021 and beyond (maybe not in this tho)