(Logo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox)
Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane, But No James Bond In Sight
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "Hitman"
By Omar P.L. Moore/November 22, 2007
Sin is in, and blood simple: Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47 in "Hitman", directed
by Xavier Gens, and now playing across the U.S. and Canada. The photo is
similar to the one in another hitman film this year,
"Shoot 'Em Up".
(Photos: Rico Torres/Twentieth Century Fox)
This year in the U.S. and Canada there have been movies about a
hitman by the bottle ("You Kill Me") and a hitman by accident ("Shoot 'Em Up"),
and now comes a movie about a hitman by trade. Zavier Gens directs the
plainly-titled "Hitman", and what you see is precisely what you get.
Timothy Olyphant (the villain in this past summer's "Live Free Or Die Hard") is
Agent 47, a genetically-engineered killing machine, and is hired by Diana, a
computer who tells him where to go and who to kill. He is a bald-headed
bar-coded mercenary, the present or future corporation by executioner. Mr.
Olyphant plays him with robotic instinct and precision, a hyper-ruthless ballet
dancer-assassin in a gymnast's competition, for lack of a more convoluted
analogy. He employs a voice not unlike that of Keanu Reeves in his
"Matrix" incarnation, a voice devoid of feeling and emotion. A smile may
barely flicker across his face on one occasion in the film but his finger on the
trigger never shakes or stirs -- it is as relentless as the gun ammo he fires,
guns that are sleek, alluring killing machines.
Mr. Gens has faithfully followed the style of John Woo, employing the balletic
moves and the operatic concerto of violence staged and stylized. He gets
right to it at the very start of the credits with the classic aria Ave Maria --
and you know where the film is going to go -- and for action fans at least, that
is the stratosphere. Agent 47 pits wits with an Interpol agent (Dougray
Scott, the villain of "Mission: Impossible II") who knows that a hit on Russian
president Belicoff has gone wrong, or was staged. Mr. Scott's character
also has to deal with a Russian Special Forces Police Officer (Robert Knepper)
who is an obstructionist in the hunt for Agent 47, a hunt that has more smoke
and mirrors in it that an illusionist like Doug Henning or David Copperfield or
David Blaine could ever hope to dream of. His assistant Jenkins (Michael
Offei) is like a 1930's Pavlov dog, or worse, the kind of sidekick that embodied
the sad days of racial stereotypes and caricatures like Stepin Fetchit and Uncle
Tom. Jenkins is a yes man -- he says "yes, boss" far too many times to be
bearable, and says it in such an eager, slavish, subservient way as to be
distracting. Jenkins is more intelligent than this, yet he plays so
obediently that he could almost be mistaken for a dog at the beck and call of
its master.
Red light district: Olga Kurylenko raises the stakes for Agent 47 (Olyphant) in
"Hitman".
For many in the audience however, such observations won't
interfere with the hard-hitting, bone-crunching, arm-twisting action violence,
and in such scenarios blood is never optional -- it is rated M for mandatory.
It is also mandatory in such films unfortunately, to have women dragged through
the mire as cheap, empty accessories for the male lead character's enjoyment,
and although Agent 47 has been enticed by a sexy mysterious woman named Nika
Boronina (Olga Kurylenko), who has witnessed the hit on Russian president
Mikhail Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen), our resident anti-hero 47 makes it abundantly
clear that in the most heated bedroom moments he is no James Bond, by any
stretch. He treats her worst than dirt. (One could over hear a man
remark to another man coming out of the theater at the end of this film
uttering, "just a movie about a repressed gay man who solves his problems by
killing everybody.") That's one interpretation, and it may or may not be
the case for the title character of Mr. Gens' tidy actioner, but Mr. Olyphant's
Agent 47 character is supposed to be cold and unfeeling regardless of his sexual
orientation or disposition. He doesn't have the emotion of love or the
capacity to emote, he is simply embedded with the code to kill and destroy.
There are anomalies in his armor however, and he spares a life or two, but not
of his own volition. Luc Besson was one of the producers of "Hitman",
which resembles in less emotionally resonant ways Mr. Besson's "La Femme
Nikita".
"Hitman", which is based on the successful video game of the same name by EIDOS,
has a funny moment where the game is put to good use, a perfect pit of
advertising which will have the audience laughing hysterically, as will one or
two lines, mostly spoken by Ms. Kurylenko's character. Skip Woods wrote
the screenplay for "Hitman", which is hardly looking to compete for honors at
this time of year, even though its release was delayed by a month or two to the
Thanksgiving holiday. The film has some modest production design (Jacques
Bufnoir) and its cinematography (by Laurent Bares) occasionally catches the eye,
but "Hitman" isn't much more than a mediocre action film, with plenty of sequels
(and more video games) to follow.
"Hitman" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong
bloody violence, language and some sexuality/nudity. The film's duration
is one hour and 40 minutes. Eric Ebouaney of Raoul Peck's 2001 film "Lumumba"
also makes an appearance in the film.
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