Hitman (2007)

Director: Xavier Gens
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, Robert Knepper, Ulrich Thomsen, Henry Ian Cusick

Based on the video game series.

SYNOPSIS

Agent 47 is an assassin bred to be the ultimate killer, working for a shadowy agency named "The Organisation". However, he is betrayed and targeted by the same organisation and has to fight a political conspiracy in Russia.

REVIEW

Here we have another pleasant surprise, but not a massively spectacular movie. I had avoided this for a number of reasons, but mostly the history behind the movie. First of all, it's a movie based on a videogame, which rarely works once the script's been through the studio meat-grinder. Very few movies based on games escape as enjoyable pieces of entertainment in their own right, and fewer still manage to do so while bearing any resemblance to their models.

On top of that, there were a lot of stories about trouble on and off the set. Original star Vin Diesel (a perfect physical match for the game character) was replaced by Olyphant - an actor who annoyed me no end in Die Hard 4.0. He just seemed... wrong. On top of that, director Xavier Gens (whose Frontiere(s) I enjoyed quite a lot) was apparently fired from set and the studio ordered reshoots that caused major deviations from the source material.

So, I was quite surprised when I found myself actually enjoying this movie. Never above the level of mindless entertainment, but it kept me engaged and involved throughout. Olyphant isn't bad here and doesn't seem anywhere near as wimpy as I expected. While the storyline is pure connect-the-dots action thriller stuff, it has a nice wraparound and is focussed as much on an Interpol agent as it is on the "bad guys" and the protagonst.

Overall, not bad but it didn't set the world alight. But, compared to Uwe Boll videogame adaptations and similar cinematic atrocities, it's very good.

6 / 10