Review: Hitman

Sorry Gillman, this movie has nothing to do with Bret Hart, you can stop reading now. As for everyone else though…..

If you know me personally, you will know that I am a bit of a video game junkie. I spend a few hours a day when I have free time rotting away those precious brain cells that I am going to need sometime down the road for something way more important. That being said, I have never played the “Hitman” video games that this movie story line was taken from.

The movie, directed by Xavier Gens who is making his USA big screen directing debut and is produced by Vin Diesel……yes let that sink in for a minute. The role of “Agent 47″ was originally supposed to be his, then Jason Stathams, but then they finally settled on….

Timothy Olyphant whom I loved in “The Girl Next Door.” Of course in that movie he was playing as an executive in the porn industry, so to say that this role here was a bit more of a step forward for him is an understatement. Olyphant’s character “Agent 47″ is a cold blooded killer. He kills who he is told to kill, no questions asked. The movie does little to explain the background of “Agent 47″ only showing a montage during the opening credits showing a bunch of kids getting bred to be assassins.

The movie is set in Russia, where “Agent 47″ is seemingly tasked by his agency to kill the President. Of course to make the movie interesting, things are not all as they seem and “Agent 47″ finds himself in the middle of a big time international incident, which is where co-star Dougray Scott (You all probably remember him as the bad guy from Mission Impossible 2) who plays an Interpol Agent who has been tracking “47″ around the world trying to catch him and bring him to justice. Also you have Robert Knepper who plays the head of the Russian Secret Police.

The lead actress in the movie is a girl who is new to me, Olga Kurylenko plays Nika, a Russian callgirl who does her deeds for the President and because of that knows a little too much about the Russian president, and becomes a target of the government just like “47″

The writing of this movie had me confused at some parts, it was just so fast paced that I felt that some things could have used a lot more explaining. It was pretty clear though that common sense was put on the backburner slightly in order to give you a plethora of LOUD explosions, gun fights,knife fights, and bloody execution style killings. Which is all well and good for some people, but forgive me for not liking a little bit more of a story to be told about characters in movies. Especially the main one, that hurt the movie in my opinion.

Overall “Hitman” is a definite action movie, if you like fast paced run and gun shoot em up movies please go see it. For me though I was a little let down by the writing. I truly feel this could of been a lot better had some scenes of the movie been explained a little better and not ended so quickly. Not a bad movie, just not great either.

6/10