By Kofi Outlaw

HITMAN is the latest stillborn result of a popular videogame series trying to make the perilous transition to lucrative film franchise. Like its predecessors, there are some things that HITMAN gets right—most often the pulse-quickening action sequences seamlessly transplanted from its videogame origins. But again, like its predecessors, once the explosions and gunfire fall silent, there is little meat left on the bones of the film, resulting in a very mixed bag for the audience to sift through.

First launched by EIDOS Interactive in 2000, the ‘Hitman’ videogame series chronicled the covert exploits of flawless assassin ‘Agent 47.’ Raised by a secret sector of the Catholic Church, Agent 47 was bred to be the perfect killer, maintaining peace and stability in the world by ridding it of its most nefarious dictators. The game gained notoriety for its engaging premise, allowing players the freedom to dispatch targets by variable means—bloody, run-and-gun showdowns, or perhaps more guileful methods involving disguises, subterfuge, and strangulation with a piano wire.

HITMAN the film follows the game to an almost ludicrous degree. The photography tries to imitate the free-floating camerawork of the game, which is always a disaster. The ‘storyline’ involves some half-assed plot about the Russian president’s doppelganger using Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant) to assassinate the real president, allowing the doppelganger to usurp his position…or something. However that muddled mess is but a loose excuse for Agent 47 to go globe hopping, ruthlessly dispatching wave after wave of policemen, soldiers and fellow assassins, all who want to see him dead. There is also some head-scratching, tacked-on subplot involving the Russian president’s concubine (Olga Kurylenko,) who Agent 47 inexplicably takes under his wing but never romances, even though she is über hot, likes him, and even gets naked for him (and us) more than twice. Talk about wasted opportunity.


When playing ‘Hitman’ the game, it makes sense for Agent 47 to be stoic, indistinguishable and unremarkable—the player isn’t interested in Agent 47 the man, they’re interested in steering him towards a target, and then blowing that target’s brains out! The fun is in the doing. However this is where the gap between games and movies has yet to be bridged. Timothy Olyphant has shown himself to be a remarkable and versatile actor in the past, moving between highbrow drama (HBO’s DEADWOOD) and lowbrow comedy (GIRL NEXT DOOR) seemingly effortlessly. However, without strong source material to draw upon, Olyphant is left to his own devices to fill the gaps in Agent 47’s character—which he fails to do, though not for lack of trying. It’s hard to get a bead on a man who knows sixty-ways to kill with a dinner napkin, yet acts like an awkward, insecure, teenage boy, whenever a beautiful woman makes advances on him. Perhaps if that childlike innocence affected 47’s conscience about killing, or his killer’s cool affected his manner with the ladies, a level of complexity might be ascribed to the role. Alas, Agent 47 is foul-mouthed, ill-tempered and shockingly ruthless throughout the film, to the point that, when he kicks-in the skull of what seems like his 100th victim, we’re left wondering about the point of any kind of love story, besides forcing Ms. Kurylenko to disrobe (which I’m not complaining about.)

Fledging director Xaiver Gens also needs to raise his game. The editing in HITMAN was so choppy that I actually fell off the storyline and had to fill in the holes later. (Figuring out the whole Russian President/Doppelganger thing took about a day.) One minute Agent 47 could be in one country, then, in the next shot, he’d be somewhere else entirely, with no apparent explanation as to why, or how he’d traveled. The cinematography was grossly inconsistent, so that the same scene would be taking place at midday initially, but by the end of the scene it was dusk outside. Amateur mistakes.

Is there a silver lining you ask? Well, while HITMAN’s action sequences are the standard fare—big bangs, big booms, big boobs—like a videogame there is a certain amount of glee to be had just from watching the body-count soar. In one of the better throwaway scenes, Agent 47 infiltrates a Russian arms-dealer’s penthouse, listens to the dealer rant about what guns are for sale, then informs the dealer that most of the info he just rattled off is “inaccurate” and proceeds to slaughter a penthouse full of gangsters, while half-naked girls duck for cover. And none of this has anything to do with the film’s central plot.


 If that kind of mindless indulgence is your bag, baby, then HITMAN is your paradise. For me, playing a videogame where a mute Agent 47 maneuvers his way to one kill after another somehow raised my I.Q. level more than watching this film did. But then, some people say videogames are now approaching cinematic quality—I say that in the case of HITMAN, videogames are practically assassinating the competition.