A medical mistake leads to a fast-paced action rom-com in ‘The Killer’s Game’

LOS ANGELES — There is only one way out of the killer’s game.

Starring Dave Bautista and Sofia Boutella, the action rom-com “The Killer’s Game” hits theaters this weekend, and director JJ Perry tells Spectrum News this movie is for everyone.

“It’s a love story that has a head-on collision with an action movie. I want them [movie goers] to come have a good time. It’s a date night movie. It’s for everyone, not just guys who watch action movies,” he said.

The romantic aspects of the script moved the film’s two stars to sign on. Boutella told Spectrum News she had never explored that in a film before and it made her want to be part of a project that was on the lighter side of things.

“I have played characters that were very intense, very aggressive. I was drawn to the lightness, the lightheartedness of it [“The Killer’s Game”]. Having a romance and being a rom-com, something that was more comedic, was very appealing to me. I want to do more. I had a lot of fun,” she said.

For Bautista, whom we are used to seeing in movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Knock at the Cabin” and “The Avengers,” an action movie was not in his eyesight years ago when he first read the script for “A Killer’s Game.”

“I was not even interested in doing action films, but it was the romance that popped out at me. It was perfect for me,” he told Spectrum News.

In the film, he plays Joe Flood, a contract who is (incorrectly) diagnosed with a terminal illness and takes matters into his own hands by taking a hit out on himself. When the very hitmen he hired target his ex-girlfriend (Boutella), he fights to fend off the army of assassins and win back the love of life back.

Because film is an action movie, one would think there is a lot of training that goes into it, but what may surprise folks is that Bautista didn’t do much training. Being the professional wrestler that he is, he says he’s never stops training.

“I didn’t train for this. Just grew my hair as much as I could. That was preparation,” he said laughingly.

The fighting choreography, he says, he learned on set. If there is one thing he is particular about, it’s his fight scenes.

“Not so much the stunts, but my fight scenes I am very particular about … so I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to that,” he said.

Boutella, who is a professional dancer in real life and in the film, says prior to “The Killer’s Game,” she had not danced in a long time and was nervous to shoot those scenes. At one point, she said, she even wondered if she could still dance.

“The choreographer was able to pull it back out of me. It came out crawling out of me. It was fun to go back and revisit that after so long,” she said.

If you watch the film and hope for a sequel, director Perry neither confirmed nor denied the possibility, only saying he has already been scouting different locations.

“I have been scouting in Mexico,” he said jokingly, saying he was actually on vacation but scouting, nevertheless.

“The Killer’s Game” also stars Ben Kingsley and Terry Crews.

Click the link above to watch the full interview.