Hitman

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. Critics have denounced “Hitman” as yet another video game turned into a terrible film, but maybe you’re one of those people that think they just followed the ongoing trend of hating on those type of films (you’re wrong) or maybe you’re wondering why exactly this movie sucks as much as it does. Well, after seeing the unrated version for myself, it would be my delight to point out exactly why this movie is so bad. The plot is riddled with plot holes, but I will contain myself with a simple synopsis and then we’ll dig into it a bit later.

The film follows Timothy Olyphant as a hit man with no name, so we’ll call him “Hitman”. As a young boy he was collected and trained in a mysterious organization only known as “The Organization”. They train men to be skilled martial artists and gunmen to send into the world and kill for money. They shave the heads of their agents and tattoo barcodes onto the back of their heads... Hitman’s next target is Russian President Mikhail Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen) In an unusual request, he is to kill Belicoff in public. After the kill, Hitman in instructed to eliminate a witness, a woman named Nika (Olga Kurylenko) When Hitman approaches her, he realizes that she is not, in fact a witness and that HE is the target to be eliminated.

This is a movie that moves just quickly enough that while you’re watching, you’re not asking too many questions but once it slows down even just the tiniest bit, it falls apart completely. This plot makes absolutely no sense. First of all, if you’re a super secret organization, why would you make all of your agents easily identifiable by making them stand out like sore thumbs in the middle of every crowd? Bald guys with barcodes on the back of their heads don’t exactly look inconspicuous. Next, couldn’t you think of a better name than “The Organization”? If the idea is to sound so silly that no one will believe you exist that’s a step in the right direction, but maybe you shouldn’t label all of your agent’s equipment with your super secret logo, that might be a dead giveaway that all of these bald dudes with guns are linked together. That’s just the tip of the iceberg because our ridiculous protagonist is caught in the middle of a conspiracy so amateurish and poorly scripted it sounds like it was written 15 minutes before the deadline, and by a 13-year-old.

Let’s break down the master, evil plan that drives all of the action of this movie. Step 1) Get some bad guy plastic surgery to look exactly like the Russian president. Step 2) Kill the real president and take his place. Step 3) Eliminate all witnesses to the assassination and anyone close enough to the real Belicoff to tell the difference between the two. Step 4) Get re-elected and proceed with further super-villainous plans. Step 1 goes perfectly well and is pretty much done the moment the conspiracy is set up, since the person responsible for hiring Hitman is already the president’s double. Step 2 makes no sense though. Why the request to make the killing public? If you were trying to make the ol’ switcheroo, wouldn’t it be much more logical to kill the real Belicoff quietly, clean up the crime scene and sneak in the new guy? That’s where Step 3 makes even less sense. The real Belicoff is killed in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowd of hundreds. Was the plan to kill every single person in the crowd that might have seen Belikoff get killed? What about the doctors and ambulance people who picked him up, where those guys in on the conspiracy? And the guys who disposed of the body? How widespread is this thing? Then, all the people that are put on the “to be silenced list”, there are seemingly only two that need to be taken care of with swift and silent deaths: Nika and Hitman. You would think that the plan would be as follows to implicate as few people as possible: hire Hitman to kill Nika, then kill Hitman. That way you only have to pay one guy for two kills, what a deal! But they blunder that step too!

Why did they even feel the need to kill this Hitman anyway? Our protagonist is an assassin. What is he going to do, assuming he finds out about the conspiracy? Go to the police and tell them he knows that the man in power is not the real Belicoff because he murdered the real one? As a cherry on the sundae, they send another hired gun from The Organization to take out Hitman. Hmm. First of all, you have to assume that training these agents is pretty expensive and that there aren’t that many of them out there, so it seems strange that they would so easily dispense with one of their own members. Also, we know Hitman has to get his ammunition and custom equipment from some kind of special source, so just call the guy and say “Hey, come back to warehouse 1, we have a new shiny gun for you”. When he shows up, just slip him a poisoned sandwich or something. Hey Organization, hire me! I’ll save you guys billions of dollars and you won’t have to train me to do anything!

This film is a colossus with feet made of toilet fudge. And by feet, I mean everything but the nose is worthless and smelly. Not only is the plot totally ludicrous, but our main character is about as interesting as a block of wood. It’s actually painful to watch these actors dredge through this abysmal material. I’d go on, but you get the idea. It’s just yet another terrible action-oriented video game-based movie. No need to take a second look at “Hitman”. (Unrated version on Dvd, April 18, 2014)