Here’s a quick review of a movie that I saw on Wednesday night. ‘Hitman’. All I can say is, “MAN, what a hit. NOT”. There’s totally nothing in it whatsoever, except for loads of blood, guns, explosions, a naked Russian chick that flashes her bod very frequently, and a few decent kills. I mean, remember Vin Diesel’s ‘xXx’? It was totally brainless and filled with over-the-top action. Yet, ‘xXx’ still managed to pull it off and still managed to get decent marks for its coolness with its sole dependability on Vin Diesel. But ‘Hitman’, with the lead star being Timothy Olyphant, he did not give you a sense of badass-ness when he appears on screen, or makes you go “whoa, respect” when he makes a kill. No. When you see Timothy as ‘Hitman’, immediately you will think of a bald cancer patient with nice tailored suits and with a knack to kill people. That’s Timothy. And with that, the movie failed to launch from the first minute of this film. I got nothing against Timothy, he is a good actor with fine work done in the TV series ‘Deadwood’. But I guess this movie suffered from a bad case of mis-casting as Timothy Olyphant is way too dynamic and has way too varied facial expressions in his acting palette, that when he is ‘Hitman’, he gave confusing portrayals to the viewers. Should we feel sad for ‘Hitman’, should we feel glad? Is he an all-out badass or an assassin with a heart? All this signals are not clear throughout the course of the movie and much of this mess falls on
the lap of the director, Mr. Xavier Gens. My opinion of him is that he does not bother greatly about the emotional side of the character but concentrates heavily on the action. And yet, with the character of ‘Hitman’, he should do exactly the opposite. By going along with Timothy Olyphant as ‘Hitman’, a non-badass with a heart and soul, then the emotional side of him should be portrayed much more clearly than the action. If indeed ‘Hitman’ is a total all-out-badass, then action outweighs the emotions and clearly Timothy is not your guy and hence, the whole movie is mis-placed and mis-potrayed to the viewer. When this happens, no matter how big or grand the action is, the movie will suck and it did suck from the very moment it started.
I’m not even going to bother about the storyline because it is not even there. The acting is rubbish and I feel sad that this piece of work by Timothy had caused a big blemish to his portfolio of work. The action, even with much effort from the director, is sadly mundane and serves nothing to awe you in any way. Everything feels like an ordinary TV episode of any action series you may see on a regular week night. Everything is all wrong with this movie, and that is what you get for making an adaptation just for the sake of adapting it (‘Hitman’ is adapted from a popular video game). Except for some nice blood spattering on walls when bullets hit bad guys, I recommended you give this a miss. A hit this is not.Verdict: 5 / 10
Reviewed by: Raymond Choy
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