Hitman (2007)
Directed by Xavier Gens
Written by Skip Woods
Starring Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko
Release Date November 20th, 2007
Published November 19th, 2007
Have you ever seen somebody who is clearly trying hard to be cool? He looks cool on the surface, but closer inspection shows the strain, the hard work that went into being cool. Hitman is a movie that is trying very hard to be cool, but the strain shows. Desperately aping the sleek style of the Matrix while trying to capture the cool of the sadly overlooked 2002 flick Equilibrium, a film of such effortless cool that even failing at the office does little to diminish it, Hitman comes of as desperate and uncool.
Timothy Olyphant stars in Hitman as a nameless assassin who is said to be the best killer in the world. Raised in a secret society and trained in diapers to be a stone cold killer, our nameless hitman is given only a number, 47, and a barcode tattoo on the back of his head. Sent to Russia to assassinate the Russian President, a former hardliner going soft toward the west, 47 finds himself wrapped in Russian politics when the man who he knows he killed continues to make public appearances after his death.
On the assassin's trail is a hard charging Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott). His pursuit of the assassin is dogged and determined and yet he carries a grudging respect for the skill and efficiency of the killer. When the two catch up to one another the determined stares are nearly as lethal as the bullets.
Directed by Xavier Gens, Hitman is far from being a bad movie. Rather, Hitman is a thinly premised action flick that looks much cooler than it actually is. Highly stylized, quickly choreographed violence is nothing new and Hitman arrives looking like a poseur. We've been there since The Matrix, and we've done that a few times already this year alone, Smokin' Aces, Shoot'Em Up.
So why isn't Hitman really cool? Because it's too late. This highly stylized, high body count action movie is already becoming out of date. In fact, this action sub-genre has already been sent up and blown away in Michael Davis' Shoot'Em Up. That doesn't mean there are no more thrills to be garnered from the highly stylized action movie but that Hitman simply doesn't do enough to innovate or set itself apart from what has come before it.
Timothy Olyphant oozes charisma and machismo but I'm not sure this is the right role for him. Anyone who remembers his terrific performance in Go or his foul mouthed role on television's Deadwood will find him hard to believe as an asexual hitman monk. Co-star Dougray Scott plays the good guy better than expected in Hitman. Often typecast as a faceless baddie, Scott shows good guy range never seen before in his journeyman career.
No doubt Hitman will satisfy audiences with short attention spans. Only a moviegoer who has already forgotten the last stylized action flick they saw will truly enjoy the derivative action of Hitman. On the bright side, Hitman is the rare video game adaptation that doesn't entirely suck. Director Xavier Gens is a more than competent director. His action is solid, if unspectacular. He's far better than most directors left with the task of interpreting artless video games into movies.
Hitman is too familiar to be great and is far less cool than it wishes it were. Trying to be cool is the most uncool thing you can do. That's the unfortunate place where the makers of Hitman find themselves.
