Review – Hitman

To date this is the hands-down winner for Picture That Most Closely Resembles the Video Game Upon Which It’s Based. Tim Olyphant even manages to endow the hero with the same smooth-yet-mechanical gait of the player character from the game, which is actually kinda creepy. The plot – some mish-mash about a bred-from-birth assassin who gets double-crossed and goes on a killing rampage – is pure cartoon, but in a picture like this one should expect – maybe even enjoy – something cartoonish. After all, the audience goes into this knowing that it’s the tale of a six-foot-tall bald assassin with a bar code tattooed on the back of his head who nonetheless manages to pass unseen through crowds of pursuers despite the use of only the most minimal of disguises. So some suspension of disbelief will be required. The action sequences are choreographed and edited well, the weapons are cool, and the acting and script at least manage to stay out of the way. In other words, it’s an experience very much like playing the game. The only nettlesome difference is that the game rewarded craftsmanship. The only way to earn top ratings and bonuses was to kill the target without so much as alerting the guards. Wading in and blasting everything that moves would get you to the end of the level, but you’d wind up with a disrespectful ranking of “mass murderer” or “postal” as a result. But in the movie version, Agent 47 blithely slaughters (or at least injures) just about every character with a speaking part and dozens more who never get a word in edgewise before being gunned down. The trickier twists of the game were a lot more entertaining. Mildly amusing