Actor, stuntman, martial artist, and fight coordinator Alain Moussi stars in “King of Killers”, a new action thriller based on the Darkstorm Comics Graphic Novel by Kevin Grevioux. The film marks the feature film directorial debut for Grevioux who is perhaps best known as the co-creator of the popular “Underworld” film series.

To his credit, Grevioux brings along some of the same stylish and violent action that helped energize the “Underworld” movies (both the good early ones and the not so good later ones). Unfortunately it’s the dressing around the action that brings “King of Killers” down. Some of it is due to the writing; some of it is due to the performances. Either way, Grevioux has a hard time selling us on anything other than the bloody headshots, brutal throat slashes, and nasty bone-breaks.

Moussi plays Marcus Garan, a Chicago-based hitman working for his good friend, mentor, and connected middle-man Xane (Stephen Dorff). Marcus has earned the reputation of being a reliable “company man” who carries out his jobs quickly and efficiently. But he also has a much different life away from his job. He’s happily married to his wife Karla (Amy Groening) and together they have a precious daughter named Kimberly (Zoe Worn).

The opening 15 minutes or so offers an excruciating introduction to Marcus’ secret double life. We watch him carry out a hit with deadly precision, but there’s a silliness to it (intentional or not, I’m still not sure) that lessens the impact. Then you have the family stuff which amounts to little more than hokey sentimental mush meant to show the storybook perfect home life. Mercifully we don’t have to wait long before one secret life inevitability meets the other.

I won’t give away how, but the oblivious Karla is killed after Marcus ludicrously botches a last-minute job. Devastated, he steps away from contract killing to focus on his daughter. But this is an action movie so you know something has to draw him back into the game. In this case it’s his daughter’s out-of-the-blue heart illness and a timely offer of $10 million – just enough for her medical procedure. All he has to do is travel to Tokyo where he’ll be offered an exclusive contract to eliminate “the world’s greatest assassin”, Jorg Drakos (Frank Grillo).

Upon arriving Marcus learns that the contract has been offered by Drakos himself. Dubbed the King of Killers, Drakos has brought Marcus and six other best-of-the-best assassins from around the world for his own personal vanity competition. The game is to see who among his peers can navigate his trap-rigged high-rise and kill him before he kills them. Whoever succeeds will win the $10 million prize. But as Marcus and his competitors soon learn, the game is rigged.

Grevioux’s competent direction gives the movie a fighting chance and it especially shines in the slick and often gruesome action sequences. It’s his screenplay that turns out to be the biggest liability. Cringy dialogue, shallow characters, gaping holes in logic. And it’s not helped by Moussi who gives it his all but simply can’t pull off what the movie needs from its lead. He especially struggles with selling the more emotional stuff, partly because of the material, but also because he tends to overact and often comes across as stiff and unconvincing.

The death knell comes in the ridiculous out-of-nowhere ending that offers a few cheap and unearned twists built for what looks like some kind of franchise ambition. You can see the movie grasping in the final 15 minutes and it leaves things in a ridiculously half-baked place. Again, it’s certainly ambitious, but it does nothing to earn our investment in what may or may not come next. “King of Killers” releases September 1st in select theaters and on VOD.