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By Robert Scucci
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Every so often, I come across a movie that’s so downright nutty I have to tell everybody about it. 2025’s Killing Mary Sue was just added to my ever-growing list, and anybody who wants an action comedy that’s as explosive and hilarious as it is original shouldn’t sleep on this one. And if you want to know why this movie is so nutty, it’s worth knowing that the two political figures constantly at odds with each other in this film are named Weiner and Koch.
Weiner and Koch get laughs on their names alone, but our protagonist is also a literal Mary Sue. For those of you not in the know, a Mary Sue is a fictional character who’s unrealistically capable, and it’s typically considered a pejorative term geared toward the fairer sex. In the case of the young woman everybody wants to kill in this movie, she’s seemingly invulnerable, but also such a slave to her impulses in public that her family constantly has to deal with life-ruining amounts of bad press. So she’s a Mary Sue in some respects, but also a total trainwreck, which is incredibly fun to watch.
Weiner, Koch, Jake Busey, And The Murder Plot
Killing Mary Sue boasts a painfully simple premise, but it’s executed to perfection. We’re introduced to a young Mary Sue Harper (Onie Maceo Watlington), who witnesses her father get murdered by the convenience store clerk he was trying to rob. This traumatic incident shaped her personality more than she’d like to admit, and it causes problems when she grows into a young adult (Sierra McCormick) living with her mother Janine (Katie Killacky) and stepfather Bradley Weiner (Dermot Mulroney), a corrupt politician of the highest order.
The story goes like this: Mary Sue travels the world, working meaningless odd jobs for Bradley because he wants her out of his house. Bradley, who’s up for re-election, has his work cut out for him because Mary Sue is hopelessly incapable of avoiding drug binges, fights, and general havoc wherever she goes. Janine knows this, their housekeeper Carrie (Rita Rehn) knows this, and, most importantly, Anita Koch (Kym Whitley), Bradley’s political rival, knows this.
So Bradley hatches a genius plan with his campaign manager Wes (Jake Busey), which basically boils down to “have my stepdaughter assassinated.” Here’s where it becomes hilarious. Mary Sue mistakes the first assassin for a welcome-home gift in the form of a male prostitute. When she and her mother get roughed up, she accidentally kills him because she was underwhelmed by what she thought was his foreplay and wanted to show him how rough she really likes it. She strikes him in the face once, and he never gets back up.
Realizing he’s dealing with the kind of young woman who’s so clueless it’s actually dangerous, Bradley reaches out to his associate Knox (Martin Kove) for more assassins to finish the job, and pretty much the same thing happens. Wave after wave of highly trained mercenaries get wiped out by Mary Sue, who just wants to do drugs, play video games, and loaf around the house unwholesomely. It all escalates to the point of absolute absurdity.
A Total Riot
One of the reasons Killing Mary Sue is such a blast is that it never takes itself seriously. It’s a bloodbath from start to finish, and I’ll never not be amused by somebody who’s so good at what they do when it’s the last thing they actually want to be doing. Mary Sue is a total monster, and it’s beautiful to watch such an apathetic young woman lay everybody to waste without even trying. Even better, she’s snarky as hell the whole time because she really doesn’t want to be bothered while she rests before her next bogus odd job that Bradley cooked up: managing a Russian banana farm.
But what really seals the deal, outside of our protagonist, is just how hopelessly incapable Bradley is as a father figure, husband, elected official, and criminal. Across the board, he messes everything up, and if he approached his personal and professional life with even a shred of honesty and integrity, he probably wouldn’t have such a Mary Sue problem in the first place. The one thing that consistently triggers her throughout the movie is how he physically can’t even say “I love you” to her. If he had shown her even a little affection, maybe she wouldn’t be such a loose cannon who just wants to feel seen and heard by her family.
At the end of the day, Killing Mary Sue is a total riot from start to finish. It doesn’t necessarily have a John Wick-level body count, but the bodies certainly drop in similar fashion given the circumstances. Everybody, especially Bradley, keeps a completely straight face because they’re never fully in the know. They genuinely don’t understand why wave after wave of hired killers keep showing up at their home, and Mary Sue is more annoyed by the inconvenience than afraid for her life.
That dynamic alone is reason enough to fire up Killing Mary Sue on Tubi the next chance you get. If you like action comedies, this one more than delivers on its promise.
