I went and viewed this movie this evening. At first I was thinking it was a cross between Tarantino meets Eastern Promises and Scar Face. But by the time the movie was half over I was thinking that I should have placed a hit on myself prior to purchasing the ticket, or at the very least before entering the theater. I would have saved myself time, money and energy in watching this film. I should have known better. It has an “R” rating and it is aptly titled. The main character is a hit man-who goes by the number “47”-no stretch to the imagination that he will be killing people throughout the film. All those who are interested in gratuitous violence, explosions, and plot holes the size of the old Soviet Empire will enjoy this film immensely!
It starts out with an allusion to the church-presumably the Holy Roman Catholic Church-as they have someone dressed in a cloak tattooing a barcode on the back of the head of our main character. Additionally Ave Maria is being sung in the background. Which I can tell you does not happen at monasteries. I’ve been to a couple in my day for retreat and to visit and they do not have monks singing 24/7 for the enjoyment and spiritual enlightenment of all the brethren. This is the only allusion made to the church as a possible responsible party of the main character’s training and vocation in life.
The rest of the film centers on his killing-usually done in very quick fashion-until he apparently is sucked into a political conspiracy to eliminate the Russian President because of his new moderate political stance. The majority of the film is spent with Agent 47 trying to determine who is responsible for putting him in the middle of this political conspiracy and placing a “hit” on him. He then uses his apparently infinite amount of money and resources to hunt them down. Additionally, he picks up an apparent innocent woman who he was to kill as an alleged witness to his eliminating the Russian President, but as Hollywood-and young men-would have it she is not killed by 47 but instead taken in by him and protected. She is supposed to be the hot woman in the film, but I don’t see it. She’s young and thin and that in Hollywood is probably all you need to be an actress in an action movie. Her ability to act may be considerable, but you’re not
going to see it here.
This film is not worth the time, the money or the energy you need to stay awake to watch it. I had a difficult time following the plot, but realized near the end that was because there was very little plot written into this film. If you’re looking for violence, explosions and a young woman to look at then this may be your film. It wasn’t mine.
Hitman (2007)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465494/
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
