Another movie that never saw the light of day at the cinema due to Covid – and consequently picked up by Amazon Prime – is this really entertaining sci-fi thriller.
It’s also a shame for lead star Frank Grillo – best-known as Captain America villain Crossbones and a couple of The Purge films – that he didn’t get to showcase his talents in a more expanded capacity, alongside the likes of Hollywood mainstays Mel Gibson and Naomi Watts.
Granted, it does owe a lot to the same premise seen in Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow, but Grillo’s amiable tenacity as retired Special Forces agent Roy Pulver – caught in a never-ending time loop on the day of his death and always eventually getting killed by a team of assassins at the behest of Gibson’s evil former colonel – is a cut above the genre norm.
That’s because his ex-wife Jemma (Watts) makes him aware of a top-secret project, that links to the predicament he’s in, which leads to him spending valuable time with his son Joe (played by Grillo’s ‘actual’ son Rio) – as he bumps into The Hangover’s Ken Jeong and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Michelle Yeoh along the way.
And seeing him attempt to reach his intended goal is a fun – sometimes humorous, sometimes bloody – quest that deserved a proper cinematic release, especially with the calibre of director Joe Carnahan (The Grey and The A-Team) at the helm.
The video-gaming theme may be shoe-horned in a little, but likeable star Frank grills the competition – and shows he deserves to be more than a background star as he takes his game up a level.
ESP Rating: 4/5
Gavin Miller
Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Cast: Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Annabelle Wallis, Ken Jeong, Selina Lo, Will Sasso & Michelle Yeoh
Running Time: 1 Hr 40 Mins
Director: Joe Carnahan