Boss Level (2021)

Boss Level takes the familiar time-loop hook and straps it to a rocket: it’s a gleefully over-the-top action thriller that moves with such breathless momentum you barely have time to catch your own grin. Frank Grillo makes Roy Pulver a bruised, funny, oddly endearing human pinball, learning the day’s deadly choreography with a mix of brute skill and hard-won heart, while Joe Carnahan keeps the camera and the mayhem cracking like a whip. The vibe is loud, slick, and knowingly ridiculous in the best way—part video-game run, part sci-fi paranoia, all forward motion—peppered with Mel Gibson’s oily menace and Naomi Watts’ grounded urgency. Fair warning: the violence is frequent and nasty and the humor can be crude, but if you want a fast, energetic ride that revels in its own excess, this one delivers.

Boss Level is clearly aiming for a slick, video-game-style time-loop thrill ride: a bruised action hero learning the level, mastering the pattern, and finally cracking the code. When it’s in full sprint, it delivers gnarly, high-energy set pieces and Frank Grillo sells the exhausted, dead-inside determination well, with Joe Carnahan keeping things punchy and loud. The problem is the novelty wears off, the midsection sags, and the script leans on familiar time-loop beats without enough wit or fresh ideas to make it feel essential, while the humor can land flat and the violence is relentlessly graphic. If you want a smart, surprising sci-fi thriller, this may disappoint; if you’re happy with a brutal, arcade-like action loop that’s more attitude than depth, it’ll do the job.