Stream It Or Skip It?

In KO, now streaming on Netflix, top-ranked professional mixed martial arts fighter Ciryl Gane moves further into acting – his 6’5” self appeared briefly in Den of Thieves 2 – by becoming Bastien, a fictional top-ranked mixed martial arts fighter. Also starring Alice Belaïdi, Foued Nabba, and Samuel Jouy (Ganglands), KO sets Bastien the disgraced fighter and Belaïdi’s determined lone wolf cop as unlikely partners in a growing battle against a ruthless drug gang that’s put most of the French National Police on the run. But does that battle grow enough when a movie’s named after a knockout and is built around an MMA guy’s imposing frame? Let’s join Bastien at a salt mine on the Mediterranean coast, where his self-imposed exile from the octagon is already in progress.         

KO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: Bastien (Gane) didn’t mean to kill his opponent during a championship MMA match. But two years later, as he breaks salt rocks in the hot sun as a kind of performed penance, Bastien’s nightmares about that fateful bout are disrupted by Emma (Anne Azoulay), the woman he made a widow. Emma’s teenage son Léo (Maleaume Paquin) is missing in Marseille, and when she asked the cops what they were doing about it, they gave her the heave-ho. If Bastien wants absolution, Emma says, then he must find Léo for her.  

We know a little more about Léo’s whereabouts than his mom, and even for a dude as huge as Bastien, he’s walking into a dangerous situation. In Marseille, a masked and violent gang known as the Manchours are consolidating their drug-selling territory. (We mean really violent; these guys are chaining rivals between motorbikes and hitting the throttle.) And Abdel (Nabba), the Manchours’ leader, is after Léo, too. While the BRI have largely been scared off Manchour turf, Captain Kenza Alaoui (Belaïdi) isn’t leaving. She won’t be cowed by Manchour threats. And besides, she’s got personal history with these guys. She wants to find Léo. But Kenza also thinks it’s high time the Manchours’ reign of terror ended.

“It feels like it’s just you looking for him.” Sidelined by her bosses – literally an “I want your badge and your gun on my desk” moment; KO proves police drama clichés are international – Kenza teams up with Bastien, and they proceed to knock heads with nightclub bouncers and knock a few Manchour gunmen off the backs of scooters. There are also a few examples of a supposed tough guy apparently not recognizing the MMA status and physical stature of his opponent, and paying the hard price as he flies through the air unconscious. Does KO need way, way more of these knockabout moments? We’d say “Oui, bien plus.” But your mileage may vary.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Taken together, the Polish films Furioza and Bartkowiak  – both on Netflix – are far more effective than KO in combining gang violence, police response, and bone-crunching fight action in and out of the ring. Netflix also features Sixty Minutes, where a different mixed martial arts fighter must protect a different kid in trouble.

Performance Worth Watching: In a movie called KO that stars an actual professional fighter, we still felt like the fight sequences featuring Alice Belaïdi taking down murderous goons with Kenza Alaoui’s trusty telescoping baton were the ones with the most punch.

Memorable Dialogue: “I want you to find him. You owe him that – his father is dead because of you.” 

Sex and Skin: Kenza: “Today I beat up two guys, got suspended, and I knocked out another guy with a flash ball. Tomorrow, I’ll probably get us killed. So right now, I just want to relax. Sex would be nice.” 

Our Take: There’s a mildly funny aftermath scene in KO, as a group of unnamed guys fucked up in their attack on Bastien appear before the chief of police. They’re in nose bridges and neck braces, with glowing shiners and arms in slings – they might as well have arrived in full-body mummy casts while walking with canes, classic cartoon style. That would actually complete the one-man-army theory the film wants to apply to Bastien’s character, but to us, it only does this spiritually. There just aren’t enough fights! And while Gane isn’t immovable as an actor – he manages a kind of soulful quiet giant angle as Bastien – it’s not like he’s supposed to carry this thing as a thespian. KO is at its best when it focuses on the odd couple pairing of an enormous MMA fighter with a national police officer who doesn’t take shit from anyone. But it keeps getting sidetracked by taking Bastien and Alaoui out of the action completely, and following instead the especially cruel actions of Abdel Manchour and his gang of masked lackeys. These guys are armed up, shed blood without cause, and seem driven by a grim philosophy greater than a generic turf battle. Which is why it’s weird when what they’re being so mean about is revealed as utterly pedestrian. They were torturing people and hunting teenagers for this? We feel like KO would have been more satisfying with a few more significant scraps between the bad guys and big bad Bastien. Abdel and his ilk deserve it more than a bunch of randos in a nightclub.

Our Call: MMA fans might gain something from seeing real-life pro fighter Ciryl Gane making the move into action films. But KO doesn’t land its punches where it needs to most. This wannabe knockout is a SKIP IT. 

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.