King of Killers is a bad film… but there’s a chance it’s bad in a way that could entertain. It’s a tough guy pulp actioner that made my eyes roll… but I have a low tolerance for unironic tough guy pulp actioners.

The flick is about the world’s best assassin (he probably has a mug to prove it) who hires a crew of the next best assassins for a little game. They will hunt each other to see who deserves that mug.

This film is cute because it thinks its the coolest thing that ever over color-graded itself blue and green. Toss in a bunch of film grain and, for some reason, artificial fog for good measure. It’s so desperate to look stylized that it backfires. All the CGI blood squibs and muzzle flashes certainly don’t help either.

The action isn’t awful… there’s some legit style seeping through all the posturing and loud, generic music.

The tough guy acting is pretty laughably but what else are you gonna do with so much corny tough guy dialog? I gather some of the actors are martial artists first… and it shows. They have conviction, they just don’t have a good script.

Frank Grillo plays the big bad and he turns in a Frank Grillo experience. He’s either literally Skyping in his performance or wearing a suspicious half-mask as though to hide he wasn’t on set that day. But he’s also the best actor they got and if that doesn’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does.

This is a bad movie but in way that shows conviction. If you like big dumb action films full of hokey tough guy dialog, you might like it. Other folk <raises hand> will likely just roll their eyes at a try-hard wannabe.

Score: 60