There’s a cool opening credits sequence, but beyond that ‘Hitman’ doesn’t make much sense, is encumbered by clunky dialogue, some amateurish performances and clichéd set-pieces we’ve seen umpteen times before.
Hitman (2007)
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work ![]()
Reviews Counted:92
Fresh:14
Rotten:78
Average Rating:3.7/10
Consensus: Hitman features the unfortunate combination of excessive violence, incoherent plot, and inane dialogue.
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
US Box Office: $39,617,876
Synopsis: Based on the popular Playstation 2 game, HITMAN chronicles the frame-up and retribution-packed odyssey of Number 47 (Timothy Olyphant), a bald assassin raised from birth to be a killer and tattooed... Based on the popular Playstation 2 game, HITMAN chronicles the frame-up and retribution-packed odyssey of Number 47 (Timothy Olyphant), a bald assassin raised from birth to be a killer and tattooed with a barcode on the back of his head. There's lots of BOURNE SUPREMACY-style flash-edits and superhuman stunt work as 47 seeks to find out why moderate Russian presidential nominee Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen) was the client for his own assassination, a hit that 47 pulled off perfectly, except for one hitch: the target's still alive. For romantic interest we have Olga Kurylenko as a foxy Russian prostitute sold into slavery by the evil Belicoff. She and 47 wind up on the lam together but they'll never be safe as long as Belicoff is still alive. Meanwhile, Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott) has been tracking 47 for years; he's on the scent and about to close in. Luc Besson was the producer on this, and fans of his TRANSPORTER, THE PROFESSIONAL and LA FEMME NIKITA films will eat it up, as it's got the same narrative arc, same hyper-kinetic shoot-em-up flavor, vividly saturated colors, swooping camerawork, tightly choreographed fights, and lots of blood flying from the copious bullet wounds. Vin Diesel executive produced, and one wonders what stopped his big bald head from filling the screen in the lead, but no matter, as Olyphant does a thorough job, speaking in a measured drawl that recalls, of all people, Clint Eastwood in his DIRTY HARRY days. [More]
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, Robert Knepper
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, Robert Knepper, Ulrich Thomsen, Henry Ian Cusick, Michael Offei
Director: Xavier Gens
Director: Xavier Gens
Screenwriter: Skip Woods
Producer: Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, Charles Gordon, Adrian Askarieh
Composer: Geoff Zanelli
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Reviews for Hitman
Hitman starts well but quickly degenerates into a confusing, badly plotted mess, enlivened only by the occasional gunfight and the luminous presence of Olga Kurylenko.
A bit po-faced and unremarkable; more outrageousness and humour would have helped.
Hitman is by no means great filmmaking but as video game adaptations go, it proves mindlessly entertaining and at least it's not irritatingly stupid.
Incoherent and utterly lacking in panache, style or originality, Hitman is missing an ‘s’.
The only thing Hitman succeeds in doing is confirming what common sense could tell you without spending millions of dollars on a special-effects-filled movie: A series of novels is much richer source material than a series of video games.
It's as embarrassing as anything Steven Seagal has put out in the past decade.
Sure, he glowers to some effect, and is obviously handy with small arms and melee weapons, but otherwise is about as menacing as one of the extras in THX-1138.
If someone ran this guy through a scanner, the readout would say: "Mark down and stock in straight-to-video aisle."
Hitman loses steam as we realize what is supposed to happen and we don't get enough bold surprises along the way.
It might have helped to give the hero a real back story, rather than a jumbled montage opening credit sequence, but overall, this film is pretty much an unfixable mess from the start.
I haven't played the video game but I'm guessing the movie has chosen, for some reason, to re-create the story scenes that play between levels. The ones that players skip.
If everything wasn’t so deadly serious, I’d laugh, instead, I shook my head in complete disbelief.
Apparently the film thinks fans of the videogame will empathize with a guy who has zero practice dealing with women.
Massive illogic abounds throughout the video-game-based thriller Hitman, starting with the opening, which posits a mysterious organization 'so secret no one knows it exists,' even though it somehow maintains 'ties to every government.'
In the finest tradition of adolescent identification figures, he's not only ruthless, dispatching numerous baddies with hair-trigger shots to the head, but profoundly desexualized.
Hitman stands right on the threshold between video games and art. On the wrong side of the threshold, but still, give it credit.
Hitman is one of the best movies ever made from a video game, which doesn't provide you with very much information. That's like declaring the best meal you've eaten at a strip club, or the best love ballad by Kenny Loggins.
Latest News for Hitman
October 28, 2009:
Xavier Gens Will Cope with Fallout ![]()
"Hitman" director Xavier Gens is set to direct "Fallout," a post-apocalyptic thriller that's being touted as a film "that combines elements of 'Assault on Precinct 13' with... More...
June 24, 2009:
Fox Hires Kyle Ward for Hitman Sequel ![]()
Fox is gearing up for a "Hitman" sequel -- and according to IESB's sources, the studio has hired Kyle Ward to write the script. More...
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