At one point Vin Diesel, the muscular star of XXX and The Fast and the Furious (which became a game), was set to produce and star in the film version of Hitman . But Timothy Olyphant, of cable's Deadwood and more recently the steely-eyed villain of Live Free or Die Hard , has ended up with the role of Agent 47. Having no name, just a number, Agent 47 was raised from childhood to be a gun for hire. But 47's latest hit has gone bad and now the agency that employed him is out to kill him. But as everyone knows from films such as The Bourne Trilogy , a company should never try to kill the person that they trained to be an expert in assassination. Not only is it stupid, it's bad business. Problems start when 47 assassinates a Russian politician only to discover in the news that the man's not dead. This leads to a political conspiracy that sends 47 along with a young prostitute (isn't there always one?) on the lam. But 47, as you may expect, isn't content to merely escape, he wants revenge and won't stop until everyone who's a potential danger is dead. Complicating matters is the fact that there's a dogged Interpol agent named Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott) also on his tail. But Mike and 47 develop a certain mutual admiration that's plays out in a fun manner.
Hitman , which boasts Luc Besson as one of the producers and French-US lineage, doesn't have high aspirations. First-time feature film director Xavier Gens handles the action competently and, at moments, even provides some inspired action. He approaches the action with proficient skill and has fun in one sequence, making 47 fight in extremely cramped quarters. The action plays out more as set pieces rather than something that flows naturally from the story. But heck, in an action film who cares how you get to the action so long as it's good, and for the most part, Gens delivers in this department. Nothing is as delirious as John Woo's bullet ballets and heroic bloodshed, but entertaining and at least game to go for an R rating.
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Go away I'm busy. 47 is good with guns not girls. (20th Century Fox)
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The story is total formula and writer Skip Woods does nothing to innovate. But he and Gens keep the forward momentum and don't stop to complicate matters with character development or theme. As with most adaptations of video games, there's a lot of first-person shooter style sequences of people just following, tracking or chasing others. The early scenes feel clumsy as the film tries to get all the plot exposition out of the way, but after that, it moves along fairly smoothly.
Olyphant is a somewhat odd choice for 47. As an actor, he conveys more brains than brawn and 47 requires a definite physical presence to sell you on his lethal skills. Olyphant presents a trim, almost slight figure (dare I say there's almost something feminine in the way he walks away from the camera at times or maybe that's because I just saw Cate Blanchett play a male character and she cut a similar slim silhouette). He doesn't come across as your typical action star and there's something refreshing in that. The character is also made to be quite inept with women (now that's something that might have changed if Diesel had played the role since his screen persona has been established along very different lines) and maybe that reflects the way the filmmakers and possibly the gamers look at women as merely set dressing but not really worth spending much time on. Olyphant has a nice cold stare that works in his favor but his character has no more dimensionality than his video game counterpart.
It's difficult to come down hard on a film for keeping its aspirations simple and delivering on them. Hitman (rated R for violence, language and nudity) is by no means great filmmaking but as video game adaptations go, it proves mindlessly entertaining and at least it's not irritatingly stupid. But you won't be pondering the complexities of this film as you leave the theater.
Companion viewing: Live Free and Die Hard , Deadwood, Le Femme Nikita, DOA
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