Review: The Film Hitman (2007)...

What is it about secret, rogue, quasi-governmental agencies that’s so appealing? From The Syndicate in The X-Files, to SD-6 in Alias, to Caddis in Butterfly, even The Bureau of Paranormal Research in Men In Black, what do they all mean? What do they signify? Are they an allegory for the wishful, defiant, bird-flippers in all of us? Or do they signify something else? 

Hitman (2007), based on the popular video game, doesn’t seek to answer any of these questions. But it plays the game, all right—no pun intended. And it presents a formulaic, yet entertaining—if not wholly satisfying—story to boot. 

Timothy Olyphant (Justified) stars as Agent 47, a nameless operative in The Organization (how original), who was groomed from childhood to be a master of the killing arts. And that’s it. No other training, not even socialization. So when he completes a mission that goes quite sideways, colleagues, Interpol, and the Russian F.S.B. seek to wipe him off the map. 

Enter Red Herring Nika Boronina, played with girlish sensuality by Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), whose very presence confounds Agent 47, so much so that he allows a target to live because of her actions. This target just happens to be Interpol Agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott, Mission Impossible II), that particular trope of a lawman who has a singular obsession with the nameless titular character. Think Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford in Fugitive, or Tom Hanks and Leonardo di Caprio in Catch Me If You Can, but dialed down substantially. 

Kurylenko’s doe-eyed seductiveness plays well off Olyphant’s awkward stoicism. Their scenes don’t exactly sizzle, but they raise the temperature every time they’re on screen together significantly. We root for this couple, yet they remain platonic, despite Kurylenko’s earnest attempts at something more, and Olyphant’s deflections using anything he could from his surroundings. Talk about spatial awareness. 

The action scenes were well shot and well-choreographed, with, I gather, many nods to the source material. They did not interrupt the narrative nor did they punctuate it. Could this film have existed without the action sequences? Probably. But then it wouldn’t be based on a video game nor called Hitman. It would probably be a film version of dubious excellence of yet another John le Carré novel. 

My first instinct is to recommend this film as an entertaining one-off, yet this is the second time I’ve seen it. It indeed scratches that wishful, defiant, bird-flipping itch in all of us, so perhaps I will watch it again sometime.