Killers Anonymous is a 2019 action film about a support group of killers where the participants sit in a circle of trust and share their transgressions.
The film industry’s fascination with hired killers is almost a little troubling, with seemingly endless stories of assassins and their deadly woes filling up screens for decades now, and while some are surely entertaining, the curious subgenre feels more than a little run dry. Most try to give some spin to the hunt-the-target-and-get-them-dead obligations of such, and admittedly, this sometimes makes for some clever entries. With director Martin Owen‘s newest effort, Killers Anonymous, we’re back in the fray with a unique take on the business, one rife with an almost overzealous flair that is not without some fun but also feels overdone and out of date.
After a brief exit from a group therapy session, The Man (Gary Oldman) meets a rather exasperated young woman named Jade (Jessica Alba) at a small pub, she telling of a mix up that got her a bit busted up. It then cuts to Jade in an empty techno stripclub where she gets hit on by a dancer who then well, pumps her full of lead. What’s happening? We’re then in a formal gathering of assassins for a meeting of Killers Anonymous, where we meet a gaggle of misfits types, including the seemingly timid Alice (Rhyon Nicole Brown), the mysterious newbie in the group of assorted death-dealers. No one is sure who called the meeting this time and as such, tensions run high with secrets and lies between them.
Yes, this is a funny idea for a story, a band of killers who talk through their problems, but this isn’t nearly as inventive or amusing as it feels it wants to be. Each of the members get their time to tell their backstories or issues and of course they all are aggressive and untrustful of each other, though none really have the dry wit and absurd violence this kind of thing demands, despite the lengths Owen goes to in presenting his creative flashbacks. This all hovers over the recent assassination of a US senator running for President and a new bounty out to kill his killer.
Killers Anonymous tosses in all its chips in trying to deliver something over-the-top, with extreme close-ups, swishy cameras, snappy dialogue, saturated lighting, throwback sets, and even bits of comic book panel-esque animation. It’s certainly colorful and dynamic but it also comes off less as an homage to the innovators of these techniques than a kind of robbery of such, mostly because it feels artificial more than organic. It’s kind of frustrating because you really want this have some bite. Still, that’s not to say some of this isn’t good to look at, Owen clearly knowing how to set up a scene and offering a few good payoffs.
It’s not always clear where it’s going though, which is half the point, but the film doesn’t have the joy it needs, the cartoony characters all lined up and dutifully filling in the bold lines they are drawn from but not unleashed enough to give it the energy it needs. The look-at-me stylistic flairs constantly in your face work all too hard in trying to keep this a kind of weird modern fantasy, and while sometimes that has its favors, there is no escaping a contrivance to it that saps some of the potential drama. There’s some fun with a few of the characters and if you can settle into the confinement of the mostly one-setting approach, it has some good moments. Naturally, Oldman, even as he’s cast to the peripheral for most of it, is the best thing going, seemingly recognizing the cornball fun at the ready.