Maybe you don’t play video games. But if you do, Agent 47, the main character of the Hitman series, is already known to you – from his crimson tie to his signature black gloves and the bar code on the back his head, Agent 47 is brought to life with the help of director Xavier Gens (Frontière) and lead actor Timothy Olyphant (Live Free or Die Hard).
Olyphant plays the disciplined super-assassin who talks through gritted teeth and never misses a target. So when his latest victim, Russian President Mikhail Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen, Fremkaldt) takes a sniper shot to the head but manages to survive, Agent 47 knows something’s amiss, and it’s definitely not his aim. After discovering that he’s been set up by his own agency (creatively billed “The Agency”), Agent 47 must now get to the bottom of the situation by climbing back up to the top: He must dispatch the same man he thought he killed the first time.
Hitman hides nothing at all – it’s a bloody, raw, gunslinging and in-your-face action movie that understands its genre and welcomes it with guns blazing. Anyone who enjoys a good vigilante flick will surely feel comfortable in Hitman’s world, where bones crunch, bullets fly and heads cartoonishly explode. The plot even holds up against the obscene amount of action and provides a nice backdrop for our stylish protagonist to do what he does best.
Olyphant does a solid job of playing the brutish Agent 47, making everyone understand what Mr. Clean’s life would have been like if he put down the detergent and picked up a pistol. Vin Diesel (Find Me Guilty), who was originally slated to play the bald, deep-voiced assassin, may seem like the obvious choice, but Olyphant is successful. And Diesel, an uncredited executive producer on the film, surely gave Olyphant plenty of personal direction because he manages to pull it off: everything from his distant and cold expression to his distinct posture makes Olyphant a perfect fit.
This film could have easily been written off like the crap that was BloodRayne (another video game-to-movie flick) if it weren’t directed and shot well; luckily, that’s one of Hitman’s best features. Shot by French cinematographer Laurent Barès, the camerawork is as quick and stylish as the hitman himself.
Hitman definitely ranks up there in the action movie genre and is one of the more satisfying movies to date when it comes to vigilante justice. It’s rather similar to xXx (in which Diesel starred), but thanks to the background supplied by a successful video game, Hitman offers a fun and fashionable alternative to your normal action movie. But you won’t feel out of the loop if you’ve never played the video game before – this movie stands alone as a counterpart to the video game franchise, rather than another adaptation dependent on its original source.
Hitman is a no brainer, but if you’re looking for a story with plot twists, that’s there too. There’s a lot to enjoy, but you don’t need to know anything about the game – all you need to know is that there’s a professional hitman, and he’s got work to do.
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RATING: 3 STARS OUT OF 5
