‘K.O.’ Review – Gaudy French Actioner Provides Decent Fighting But Nothing Else

If you cast an MMA fighter in the lead role of a movie, it’s a fairly obvious statement about what that movie is intended to be. K.O., a French actioner streaming on Netflix and starring UFC heavyweight contender Cyril Gane, is exactly that kind of movie, for better and indeed for worse.

Gane’s range isn’t exactly tested by playing an MMA fighter, Bastien, although it’s perhaps a little unrealistic that he has half-decent grappling skills (I hope he doesn’t read that). Unfortunately for Bastien, though, he’s a little too good at fighting and accidentally kills his rival, Enzo, in the cage. Following that, he becomes something of a recluse, retiring from the sport and living alone in the middle of nowhere, working manual jobs, deliberately not talking to anyone, and staring pensively off into the sunset.

This is until Bastien is tracked down by Enzo’s widow, who wants him to find their missing son Léo (Maleaume Paquin), who has become dangerously embroiled in a gang war for control of Marseilles’ underworld. Of course, the loss of his father contributed to the kid’s lack of self-preservation instincts, so Bastien feels responsible. Despite having quietly sworn himself to pacifism, he agrees.

The search for Léo immediately puts Bastien in the path of Kenza (Alice Belaïdi), a rogue cop with a personal stake in taking down the Manchours, a fearsome and psychotic gang vying for control of the city. Kenza’s already at the end of her tether following a personal loss and is comically happy to allow a complete stranger whose special talent is violently beating people to get closely involved in her investigation.

All of K.O. is like this. It has a very lean 90-minute runtime and has to devote a good chunk of that to obligatory action sequences, so all the stuff that would typically require some build-up – Bastien abandoning his non-violence pledge, Kenza going off the books, Léo realizing Bastien can help him with his grief, etc. – plays out like it’s on fast-forward. This isn’t conducive to a good movie in the traditional sense, but it’s very funny and gets us to the point quicker. And as intimated at the top, there is only one point of a movie like this.

Alice Belaïdi, Maleaume Paquin and Cyril Gane in K.O. | Image via Netflix

To live up to its promises K.O. delivers a couple of extended, surprisingly decent fight scenes; one in a nightclub that plays out like a gaudy melee homage to John Wick, and another in a police station that suffers a bit for involving too many firearms when the entire appeal of Gane as a screen presence is that he’s a hulking mean-looking Frenchman who can legitimately and convincingly terrorize people with his paws.

Gane is convincing in this regard. His real-life selling point is that he’s huge but moves like a man much smaller, and I was pleased to see that this comes through in the choreography. There are a handful of funny visual beats that emphasize Gane’s size, but he’s still quick and athletic in action. Director Antoine Blossier favours wide, clear shots, and the fights benefit from not having been edited to pulp or distractingly embellished with visual effects. If there’s a reason to watch K.O., this is it.

The French have obviously seen some value in leveraging MMA fandom for streaming dollars. The Cage was a surprisingly good example of how to merge recognisable figures from the sport with a surprisingly good drama. But K.O. has more in common with ropey international action fare like Ad Vitam and Exterritorial, barebones movies with serviceable set-pieces. Gane’s involvement is a novelty that’ll only appeal to fairly entrenched UFC fans; what remains is just his facility for fighting. In that regard, at least, he performs precisely as advertised. Just don’t expect anything beyond that.