Entertainment

By Richard in Entertainment, Films and TV, Shorts ⋅ November 26, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

I was hoping to actually type a review of Hitman, but I changed my mind after watching it and instead I've decided to make a list of why the film is so crap:

• This film totally fails to capture the essence of the game. If you want to see a Silent Assasin style Hitman, this is not it. This is the Hitman who runs through the levels just shooting everyone. A classic example is when 47 slips an unknown substance into his quarry's drink. Something lethal? No, it's a laxative so he can go to the bathroom and shoot him and three of his guards in the head.  Sadly, this is also the closest thing to the game you'll get in the film. All his other assasinations are done with gunshots to the head, or a pointless and tacky swordfights. In fact, the very next scene in the film involves 47 gunning down an entire bar full of people. Two guns, point them in opposite directions, spin round and evreyone is dead.
• I knew from the start when it kindly informed us that London is in England that this was not going to be a film for the thinkers among us.
• I do not want to see 47 slagging off some Russian girl. Isn't he supposed to be a stoic and sincere assassin? I could understand if they gave him some emotion, but they're trying to turn him into a bald James Bond.
• The entire film is a 100-minute long cliché. You could basically make this film out of stock footage from all this years other action films.
• Timothy Olyphant is crap, as is Olga Kurylenko, despite having a mild aesthetic appeal. Dougray Scott has the easy job as the antagonist, and is probably the lesser of three evils/ However, he still wasn't any good.
• Humour. They try far too many times to pull off ridiculously awful one-liners and comic dialogues, and they fail miserably. Seriously though, when they bring in transvestites to try and make the film funny, you know it's a crap film.
• Uwe Boll could have done a better job directing the film than Xavier Gens.
• Uwe Boll could have done a better job writing the film than Skip Woods.  They could have just stolen the story from Hitman: Blood Money. That would have been a great film.

 This is just another in a series of terrible video game adaptations. While it's fine to have an emotionless droid as a lead in a game, it doesn't work in a film. You need a protagonist that has character. I found myself rotting for 47 out of compulsion, not because I liked him - which I didn't, all he does is kill people. Even if the write had produced a sublie story, and believe me he has not, this film would have failed on account of the central character. I can criticise Olyphant incessently for one of the most feeble performances of the year, but I have a degree of sympathy for the lad. He's working with a novice director and an incompetent screenwriter, and I have strong doubts about whether any of them have actually played any Hitman games, so Olyphant probably did the best he could in a role he was not meant to play. Vin Diesel would have been a much better choice for an impassive 47.

The film does not have many good things going for it. If you don't care about stories, have never played a Hitman game, like explosions and endless gun fights, then you may enjoy this film. It does have its moments, just not enough of them, in fact take away the gun fights and there really isn't anything going on here.  This film could have been so much more. I'd give it 3/10, 1 for the explosions, 1 for Olga, and 1 for Ave Maria.  This is 47's first outing on the big screen, and dear god I hope it's his last.

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