Western Animation / Killer Bean Forever

"Gangster Assassination Conspiracy Movie...With Sentient Coffee Beans."

Jack "Killer" Bean's first line: Could you turn down the music?

A dance party held by the local gangsters goes awry after its loud music attracts the ire of assassin Jack "Killer" Bean (Vegas Trip), who crashes the party after being rudely dismissed by its DJ. After Killer Bean's night-time massacre draws a lot of attention, Detective Cromwell (Bryan Session) of the Bean Town Police Department finds himself drawn into a strange conspiracy regarding Killer Bean and his apparent target: Cappuccino (Matthew Tyler), the local Mafia Boss and uncle of the dance party's DJ. Meanwhile, Jack is berated by the shadowy group he works for (David Guilmette), who Cappuccino's right hand man, Vagan seems all too familiar with. Further to the East, Asian assassin Jet Bean (Jeff Lew) is activated for an urgent mission in Bean Town...

A CGI-animated action movie created by Hollywood special effects artist Jeff Lew. This movie is notable for being an action film entirely starring a cast of beans. As in, coffee beans. It was independently made, designed almost entirely by a single person, with a cast of only five actors, one of them Lew himself, voicing all the characters.

The movie got a mobile game in 2012 that is a pseudo-sequel of sorts, named Killer Bean Unleashed, where the story follows Killer Bean after the events of the movie. A trailer of it can be seen here, and the film is officially available for free here.

After a surge of popularity in 2019, Jeff announced in January 2020 that a sequel series would be released in late February 2020, later delayed to March/April 2020. The first episode was finally released in September 2020. The series had been cancelled as of Autumn 2021, through the Killer Bean video game has been announced as the continuation by Jeff himself. The game will be a Roguelike Third-Person Shooter with a procedurely generated story and is slated for a 2023 early access release.

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This film contains examples of:

The Movie

• Abandoned Warehouse: The first fight in the movie happens in one.
• Affably Evil: Jet Bean, who is pretty polite to Killer Bean before and during their confrontation. He even considers him a Worthy Opponent during the fight.
• Anti-Hero: Killer Bean (Nominal Hero). Detective Cromwell may also qualify.
• Anti-Villain: Vagan is ultimately Type IV, as he was working against Cappuccino the whole time. It is also revealed that he left the Shadow Agency when it went rogue.
• Art-Style Dissonance: Despite the somewhat goofy visuals (and the fact that the characters are coffee beans), the plot itself is taken and deals with a very serious subject.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Cappuccino proves to be a ruthless mob boss throughout the movie, but the final nail in the coffin is when he tries to throw his henchman Vagan under the bus because Vagan is the one who Killer Bean is after, and is thus the reason why Killer Bean has disrupted Cappuccino's crime ring. He fires Vagan, only for Vagan to immediately shoot him, without a word.
  • One of the cops who meets Jet Bean mocks Jet's intelligence and does a racist imitation of a Chinese accent. He gets a hard kick in the face that sends him flying across the room. This kick probably killed him, since he doesn't get back up, but the other cops only say that Jet "assaulted" the cop.
• Bad Boss: Cappuccino. He kills two of his mooks because of declining narcotics sales, and it's implied this is far from the first time he did something like this. Though in his defense, aside from Vagan, he is Surrounded by Idiots.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Jet Bean fights entirely with his fists and feet, not even carrying a gun with him during his fights. Given that he takes on the entire police of Bean Town and can deflect Killer Bean's bullets at almost point blank range, it's likely he doesn't need guns in the first place.
• Batter Up!: Cappuccino combines this trope with a fall from the top of a tall building for truly spectacular results. Him keeping the bat on a rack under his screen and having a "batting average" implies this is a regular occurrence.
• Bigot with a Badge: Upon meeting Jet Bean, a Chinese bean with a heavy accent, one cop in Beantown (which is implied to be in the bean version of America) mocks Jet by imitating his accent and saying stereotypical Asian Speekee Engrish things. As it turns out, he's Bullying a Dragon, as Jet gives him a hard kick in the face.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Killer Bean's golden bullets. His guns also have some parts which are golden.
• Bloodless Carnage: Lots of guns are fired, and characters get beaten. Characters die, but no-one bleeds. No-one even Shows Damage, such as being chipped.
• Bottomless Magazines: Despite ostensibly carrying two pistols that have bullets individually signed with Killer Bean's name and use golden casings, it doesn't stop him from firing them for potentially as long as he needs to. He does reload in between volleys of fire, sometimes. Funny enough in a literal sense, since every bean applies to Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal logic, Killer Bean also basically pulls a seemingly unlimited supply of extra magazines out of his ass since he has no ammo pouches, ever.
• Bullying a Dragon: Double Subverted during the final standoff between Killer Bean and Vagan. Killer Bean tells Cappuccino to get out, but after learning about the agency that Killer Bean is from and Vagan defected from, Cappuccino demands to know more. Killer Bean threatens to kill Cappuccino for his stubbornness. Cappuccino realizes the danger he's in and wisely surrenders and starts to leave. But then he turns around and tells Vagan he's fired, throwing him under the bus. Vagan shoots Cappuccino on the spot.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Killer Bean's Badass Boast when confronted with an entire force of trained mercenaries:
  Killer Bean: Let's get one thing straight. Last night was a party. Tonight I get to work.
• Clown Car: The Mercenaries' APC. When its interior is briefly seen, about 6 beans barely fit inside. In the next shot, there's 12 of them coming out.
• Concealment Equals Cover: Killer Bean uses a wooden table some mooks were using to play poker for cover. It doesn't take any damage from the bullets, let alone let them through.
  • Oddly, this trope was averted earlier in the movie when a sniper attacks Killer Bean through the walls of a warehouse. Granted, he was using a high tech sniper rifle that could track Killer Bean through solid matter but it's still strange to see.
• Cool Car: Killer Bean drives one, with it even being used to identify him at one point.
  • Detective Cromwell also drives what looks like a knock-off Rolls-Royce or Bentley.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Killer Bean has no problems killing entire armies of the enemy beans. Every. Single. Time. He. Encounters. Them.
  • Near the final confrontation, Jet Bean takes out the entire army of Bean Town police officers without much trouble. Too bad this happens off-screen.
• Disk-One Final Boss: So, both Vagan and Cappuccino are dead. But wait! Jet Bean is on his way to kill Killer Bean, so there is one more confrontation in the climax!
• Disproportionate Retribution: Quite a few characters, major and minor, have a tendency to commit or attempt this, usually by resorting to murder:
  • A loud party held by The Mafia won't turn the music down, and Killer Bean can't sleep. So his solution is to go there fully armed and crash through the front door with intent to kill, running over at least three beans in the process. They understandably fire on him after that, and all promptly die for it in short order.
  • Jet Bean hasn't paid his bill in the Chinese Restaurant for three months. The owner's response is to sic the chef on him, and said chef attempts to murder Jet Bean simply for supposedly insulting his food. In this case, the two were Bullying a Dragon.
  • Cappuccino's drugs sales are on the decline, so his solution (after attempting to question his hungover employees) is to bat them out of the window of his skyscraper.
• Dodge the Bullet: Killer Bean seems to have a knack for evading gunfire even in implausible circumstances, making it hard to tell if he's actually dodging shots, incredibly lucky or predicting where he might get shot at from. A notable case is the shotgun-toting bean in the first fight, where he outright cartwheels and dives through the pellet spread.
• Domestic-Only Cartoon
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Cappuccino is utterly shocked when Vagan tells him about his nephew's death. He even brings it up when Killer Bean is captured.
• Dull Surprise: Well, to be fair, there is only so much emotion you can get out of a cast of anthropomorphic coffee beans. Oddly enough, they were somewhat more expressive in the previous shorts.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: Killer Bean, his Shadow Bean contact, Cromwell (who had the good sense to go home before the final confrontation), the Chinese restaurant owner and a one-scene bartender are the only characters who aren't dead by the end of the movie.
• Fake Ultimate Mook: Vagan's mercenaries, who are meant to be Elite Mooks, but drop dead as easily as Cappuccino's own henchmen.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Killer Bean is reloading a gun during the warehouse fight, the bullets are gold in color, foreshadowing Cromwell's discovery at the warehouse
• Groin Attack: Inflicted on both Killer Bean and Jet Bean in their fight - the former on the receiving end first, courtesy of losing their footing and slamming crotch first into a cell bench, before returning the favor with a well aimed kick.
• Honor Before Reason: The reason Jet Bean doesn’t immediately shoot unarmed Killer Bean (who is locked in the jail) once he has him at gunpoint. He instead opts to fight him in hand-to-hand. This ultimately proves to be his downfall.
• Hollywood Tactics: Even though they're supposedly Elite Mooks, the mercenaries sent to kill Killer Bean do nothing to try and seek cover or even really dodge shots, and a group of them even just stream into the warehouse and get cut down while barely managing to fire any shots.
• Hypocritical Humor: Cappuccino's beans provide a few examples.
  • The Video Game-playing bean in Cappuccino's meeting complains that Vagan is "doing something illegal" to earn millions selling weapons... while himself being employed by The Mafia and selling drugs.
  • While guarding the warehouse on Main Street, one of the beans guesses Killer Bean is just some crazed lunatic with guns, and states the country's full of too many crazed lunatics with guns, and proceeds to ask his own gun "Ain't that right baby?" and kisses it. Another bean claims guns are the source of all the country's problems and should be disposed of... but not his gun.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Cappuccino gets out of the standoff between Killer Bean and Vagan by saying he needs to go do his taxes. Subverted because he then turns around and fires Vagan, an act that gets Cappuccino killed.
• I Want Them Alive!: Cappuccino argues that he wants answers from Killer Bean when Vegan suggests just killing him. This ends up costing him his life.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Jet Bean deflects one of Killer Bean's bullets, but Killer Bean tosses an unfired cartridge into the air, and then shoots the primer mid-air while it was pointed at Jet Bean.
• Instant Death Bullet: Very much the case. The moment anyone actually gets hit by a bullet, they die. The only difference is that Mooks drop instantly while the more important characters (namely, Vagan and Jet Bean) stick out long enough to provide a few last words.
• Irony: Cappuccino's unnamed nephew that acts as the catalyst of the plot asks Killer Bean if he knows just what he's pissing off and who his uncle is. Killer Bean's response is a Blunt "Yes" before shooting him dead. Turns out he actually didn't really care that much, and goes fighting The Mafia on the hunt for his target afterwards without realizing why they're so pissed at him until Cappuccino spells it out personally.
• Jerkass: Killer Bean himself considering his role as the anti-hero. He's a reckless and arrogant killer with a dry sense of humor and an almost sociopathic nature given his apathetic attitude towards killing Cappuccino's nephew. He also refuses help from Cromwell despite the detective having greater experience with Beantown's underworld and relatively level-headed intelligence by comparison. Also did we not forget to mention he kills a bunch of beans just because they kept him up at night?
• Just One More Level!: Briefly said by one of the beans in Cappuccino's department meeting as his boss was about to whack him with his bat.
• The Mafia: In bean form. They are Killer Bean's enemies.
• Mexican Standoff: When Cromwell confronts Killer Bean in a bar, they end up pulling their guns on one another, then the bartender pulls a shotgun on both of them.
  • Played for Laughs when one of Cappuccino's Beans has his revolver on Killer Bean while Killer Bean has his pistol on the mook.
  Mook: Looks like what we have here is a standoff.
  *Killer Bean shoots him.*
  Killer Bean: Not really...
• Murder, Inc.: The Shadow Agency, a paramilitary agency employed by the government to carry out assassinations, and whom Killer Bean, Vagan and Jet Bean are members. They've since started selling their services to the highest bidder, and Vagan, disillusioned with their abandonment of their past principles, left the organization and took some vital information with him, prompting the agency to send Killer Bean after him.
• Mythology Gag: Two scenes in the film are mirrors of Lew's previous short films:
  • The whole opening sequence where Killer Bean massacres an entire warehouse full of goons for playing their music too loud while he's trying to sleep is a remake of "Killer Bean 2: The Party." The short gets another Call-Back in a later fight scene when Killer Bean dodges gunfire by break dancing.
  • Killer Bean's capture references "Killer Bean: The Interrogation", even though the movie's version is much shorter and focuses more on The Reveal.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Two of the beans seem to be parodies of real life celebrities. Cappicuno being based on Al Pacino and Jet Bean being based on Jet Lee.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Cappuccino is the only bean who isn't shaped exactly like everyone else, having a shorter and wider body. Vagan and Jet Bean also have muscular arms, which nobody else has.
• One-Man Army: Killer Bean didn't get that moniker for nothing. In just the first 3 minutes of the film, he kills 26 goons, and that count only gets higher until he makes up around 79% of the films body count. It's implied that Vagan and the rest of the Shadow Bean agents are all this as well, but Jet Bean is the only one that shows it, as he mops the floor with the Beantown police force with his bare hands in a matter of minutes.
• Pop the Tires: Detective Cromwell does this to Vagan in the beginning of the film.
• Ragdoll Physics: Whenever a character gets shot, exploded or punched, they flop like a limp noodle.
• Restrained Revenge: Killer Bean gets even with the bartender by going to the bathroom, leaving a "double flusher" in there... but only flushing once.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Detective Cromwell's weapon of choice, and he's a pretty damn good shot with it.
• Scope Snipe: Killer Bean pulls off a nonlethal version to disable a sniper about a third of the way into the movie.
• Sequel Hook: Cappuccino, Vagan and Jet Bean are all dead, but the Shadow Beans are still active and Killer Bean is now planning to hunt them all down.
• Shoot the Bullet: In slow-motion, Killer Bean manages to shoot one bullet into another thrown bullet, and therefore affect its trajectory.
  • Also occurs a bit earlier when Killer Bean shoots an explosive projectile just as it's about to leave the barrel to finish off one of his opponents.
• Shout-Out: Killer Bean's back holsters and golden guns are a clear reference to the movie Face/Off.
• Skewed Priorities: One of Cappuccino's beans, about to be whacked out of a skyscraper window, decides to ask his boss if he'd be eligible for unemployment. He then begins stating his social security number while plummeting towards the street below.
• Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: There Are No Women. No female characters are seen or mentioned. It's not known if female beans even exist. During a Q&A related to the new 2020 series, Jeff Lew has confirmed that female beans do exist and the only reason why they weren't seen in Forever was because he wasn't sure how to make a female bean animation model or at least one that looked good.
• Sliding Scale Of Silliness VS Seriousness: Surprisingly enough, it falls on the serious side of the spectrum. The plot itself is taken and deals with a very serious subject (Assassinations, Drug Trafficking and Betrayal), and most of the comedy comes from Killer Bean's quips and dry sense of humor, with only two scenes being really deliberately comedic (Killer Bean's "Double Flusher" and Cappuccino's Bad Boss tendencies with his hungover employees).
• Sociopathic Hero: Killer Bean shows traits like this. While it's not entirely sociopathic to not feel for those who kill given that assassins must learn to close off their emotions when working, his apathetic and reckless demeanor are definitely there to consider given that he mocks the death Cappuccino's nephew right in front of him and given his habit of engraving his name on his bullet shells, he may also be narcissistic. He also stated to be by his former bosses and Cromwell to be impulsive, hinting at a possibly low functioning sociopathy.
• Species Surname: Almost every character has the last name "Bean", as do organizations such as the Shadow Beans. Going further, the story takes place in Bean Town.
• The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The fiscal year chart for Cappuccino's company shows that they sell weapons, narcotics, and... eggs.
• Toilet Humor: Killer Bean uses the restroom at a bar. When he's done, we hear the sound of the flusher and he walks out saying that it was a double flusher. When this is pointed out by the bartender, Killer Bean just shrugs. Either Killer Bean had a large, uh, excrement and refused to flush it twice to get rid of it all to show who's boss, or he flushed what he considered a double flusher size in a single flush.
• Too Dumb to Live: A good chunk of the cast fall victim to this.
  • Most of Cappuccino's beans fit into this category, to the point that aside from Vagan, their boss is Surrounded by Idiots.
    • A few beans from his Narcotics department decided to show up for a meeting... while hungover. Out of the four that show up, one is asleep, while another is playing video games. It's little wonder their boss whacked them out the window.
    • During the shootout in the warehouse later in the film, Killer Bean starts throwing the mooks' own grenades at them. How does one bean respond to this? By staring at the grenade slowly rolling towards him, and calling it out to his fellow beans just before it explodes under his feet.
  • Killer Bean shoots up the Mafia Dance Party... and leaves behind a boatload of evidence (such as his golden and signed shell casings) which allows the police (specifically Detective Cromwell) to track him down by next morning, and tips Vagan off to his approach.
  • Sure Cappuccino, fire your best lackey Vagan just as you’re about to escape a standoff between him and Killer Bean. Vagan is less than pleased to hear this and shoots his "boss" without even looking at him.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: One of the guards tauntingly asks a tied up Killer Bean, "How does it feel to be killed, by your own gun?" while pointing Killer Bean's own gun at him. Killer Bean breaks out and later steals the guard's own gun, and asks him the exact same question before shooting him through the head.
• Villains Out Shopping: The very first scene of the movie has Killer Bean shooting up a mafia dance party because they were playing their music too loud while he was trying to get some sleep.
• Waistcoat of Style: Detective Cromwell doesn't have the trench coat that most detectives have, but he makes up for it with a snazzy waistcoat.
• Wham Line: Killer Bean reveals he's not here to kill Cappuccino, but to kill Vagan. Suddenly the plot turns from fighting against The Mafia to assassinating a rogue agent of Killer Bean's organization for knowing too much, before Killer Bean finds out he was expendable from the start and next on the list.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Detective Cromwell disappears shortly before the final battle of the movie and is never brought up again. Which comes in handy, since the rest of the entire Bean Town Police Department are dead by the end of the movie.
• You Have Failed Me: Cappuccino is introduced killing his narcotics dealers for their incompetence. At first he's only angry because the drugs aren't selling well, but what really pisses him off is how the goons show absolutely no respect towards their boss, nor any sort of concern that they're not doing their jobs. This negligence gets them thrown out of the skyscraper window.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Cappuccino fires Vagan for his deception. only to be shot by Vagan
  Cappuccino: Oh by the way, Vagan... YOU'RE FIRED!!

The Series

• Half the Man He Used to Be: Mr. Latte gets killed this way by Reximus after his upper body and head gets disintegrated with a Lightning Gun.
• Humongous Mecha: The Karen-12000, one of Reximus' products is an example of one. It appears in Episode 2, but it never gets used. However, the way it is revealed opens up the hope that it will get used in a future episode.
• Immediate Sequel: The Series starts right after the events of Killer Bean Forever.
• Noodle Incident:
  And please... don't kill the buyer this time.
• Now What?: The first ten minutes of the first episode have Cappuccino's beans wonder how they're going to get paid now that Killer Bean has killed Cappuccino and Vagan.
• Retcon: Parodied. When a female bean is introduced in the first episode, who says she's been part of Cappuccino's syndicate the whole time, there are Flashbacks to scenes from the original film, but they pause and zoom in on unvoiced beans, but with differently colored lips and eyelashes, "revealing" they were female the whole time, even in a scene likely none of them were even a part of (a police officer making a racist crack toward Jet Bean).
• Robot Buddy: Max, a hovering spherical drone is one for Killer Bean courtesy of Kessler from Episode 1 onwards.

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