“They Will Kill You,” has over the top action, but is underwhelming in every other way

I spent $10 to see “They Will Kill You”.

For this amount of money, I could have gone to a casino and put it on black. Even if it lands on red and I lose all my $10, at least I wouldn’t have seen “They Will Kill You” in theaters again.

This movie stars Zazie Beatz as a young woman named Asia Reaves. She takes a maid job in a New York high-rise building to find her estranged sister, only for the building to be a ritual ground for a wealthy, satan-worshipping cult.

Unfortunately, the movie coincides with the release of “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” a movie with an eerily similar plot of a pair of sisters needing to fight rich cult members. 

I decided to see “They Will Kill You” over “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” because of the unique style with well-shot fight choreography in the trailer.

The film had a “Kill Bill” vibe with the excessive blood and the main character’s choice of weapon being a sword, making for some intense fight scenes. The “Kill Bill” aspect was very likely an intentional part of the film and during the first fight scene, I thought I was in for a treat.

The first fight scene was stylistically shot with a gripping score behind it. However, as the movie went on, it got increasingly over the top. Usually I’m fine with excessive movies, especially since the intent of the film was to be over-the-top, almost cartoonish, violence. But it got to a point where all the film was doing was trying to be extreme.

When I walked into the theater I didn't expect “Godfather” quality writing, but I also didn’t expect to physically cringe from the amount of corny one liners. 

Beatz is usually a great actor. I loved her in "Atlanta" and “Deadpool 2”. In “They Will Kill You” though her character felt too cocky. The one-liners delivered with such confidence felt so forced and came off as cringey. But, to be fair, she didn’t have a great script to work with.

The dialogue felt off and the delivery made me scratch my head at times. For some reason, every time Beatz’s character was in the middle of a fight, she just had to insert “b***h” in every sentence. I'm fine with cussing in films, but every time I heard her say it, it sounded like a sixth grader who just learned how to cuss. 

Visually, the movie was not at all as impressive as I thought it would be from the trailer. The trailer had film grain added that gave it an old Western feel to it. That film grain was still in the movie but it was a lot more subtle and clashed with the movie’s content of supernatural cult members, making the movie feel even more messy.  

The color grading was similar to “Scream 7,” another horrendous film. Both films have an off-putting shadowy wash and skin looks smoothed out. Although the screen in my theater was very dull and grayed out, there is potential for better visuals that I might have missed. 

The only somewhat good trait of the film was the creativity of the kills. Sometimes in action films the different ways of eliminating the bad guys gets repetitive, what comes to mind is “Die Hard” with Bruce Willis. However, “They Will Kill You” did have some interesting kills. 

One example of this is when Beatz takes an axe and wraps a rag doused in alcohol around the blade and lights it on fire. Making every cultist she kills light on fire, in turn lighting up the pitch black room she’s in. 

Complex or interesting characters were nonexistent. I didn’t feel attached to any of the characters and didn’t care if they lived or died. And the sister dynamic of one sibling coming back to the younger one after abandoning them is so overdone in movies.

As the movie progressed, the plot declined. The director – Kirill Sokolov – focused so much on being unhinged in the fight choreography that it forgot about expanding and progressing the plot. 

The worst part about the film is that it didn’t take any gambles. Everything from the plot to the dialogue was recycled. If at least Sokolov was brave enough to do something new and failed, I would give the movie more grace. The only gamble here is my $10 ticket purchase and I can say confidently...

I lost.