FILM
BOY KILLS WORLD
THIS MONTH’S RIP-ROARING-RAMPAGE-OF-REVENGE FILM
Here: Fighting fit — Bill Skarsgård. Below: Famke Janssen takes aim.
★★
OUT NOW / CERT 18 / 110 MINS
DIRECTOR Moritz Mohr
CAST Bill Skarsgård, Famke Janssen, Michelle Dockery, Yayan Ruhian, Jessica Rothe
PLOT In a dystopian totalitarian state, deaf and mute Boy (Bill Skarsgård) seeks revenge against those that killed his family years earlier.
THE ‘BADASS GUY goes on rampage after his family and/or dog is murdered’ genre is anything but original at this point —see the John Wick franchise as one of the ultimate examples, and Dev Patel’s Monkey Man as a recent one. Director Moritz Mohr tries to put a new spin on it with Boy Kills World by transplanting the setting to a zany, capitalism-fuelled dystopia, infusing it with video-game elements, and turning the violence up to 11. Unfortunately, the result is more of a derivative, headache-inducing imitation of the revenge thriller than a fresh interpretation of it.