The Mark
Hitman stars Hawaiian born actor Timothy Olyphant, who played the main villain in Live Free Or Die Hard. Olyphant takes the role of Agent 47, simply known as 47 in the film. 47 comes from a mysterious culture whereby children are raised to be assassins. Another mysterious, unexplained entity known as “The Agency” provides 47 with work. After an introductory job to set the tone of the movie, 47 takes on a new job that requires a public assassination of a Russian political figure who is likely to become the new leader of Russia. The hit looks to have gone off without a hitch, but soon 47 realizes he’s been ensnared in a political conspiracy that pits him against a dedicated Interpol team as well as the Russian military. There is an attempted love story with Nika, played by Olga Kurylenko, but otherwise you’re in for a fairly typical, “unstoppable protagonist versus everyone” type of over the top action film. This type of movie isn’t in itself a bad thing; afterall, I love Commando and several Steven Seagal movies. There are, however, several things that make Hitman far from a great action movie.
For one, I found it difficult to take the story and actors very seriously. Nothing against Olyphant, but he’s just hard to take seriously as a villain. In Live Free or Die Hard, as well as in Hitman, Olyphant seems like he’s getting ready to laugh or crack a smile a lot of times. Casting Robert Knepper, who plays T-Bag on Prison Break, was also kind of awkward to me, as in Prison Break he carries an exaggerated country accent, whereas in Hitman Knepper brings out a thick Russian accent. Similarly, 47 is nearly perfect throughout the movie, rarely making any mistake in his actions or speech at all; it’s just a little too unrealistic to not be distracted by it. The faint love story felt a little unnecessary, but 47’s on/off defiance towards the idea of romance does add some much needed depth to 47’s character.
The negatives aside, Hitman is pretty entertaining. Ultimately, for me, it doesn’t really hold any replay value, but it was certainly worth the once over.
Presentation and Special Features
You’d expect Hitman to look excellent on Blu-ray being a new, flashy film, and you’d be right. Hitman looks superb on Blu-ray. Colors are vibrant and crisp, textures are beautifully detailed and I didn’t see a hit of artifacting or grainy imagery. Hitman also sounds excellent if you’ve got the hardware to play it; featuring a DTS-HD track, I thought every aspect of the audio presentation came across very well. I especially loved some of the ambient music in the background, it added significantly to my enjoyment of the movie.
Hitman on Blu-ray also shines in the Extras department. All features are in HD, too, which is a really sweet bonus. Included in the bonus material: four featurettes, a gag reel, deleted scenes, the trailer in HD, and then the film in SD on a second DVD, intended for use on your portable media player. The gag reel is pretty funny; it’s about five minutes long, and primarily features the two Interpol inspectors, but there are several scenes featuring Olyphant, one of which has him playing a joke on the director. This gag reel didn’t help my view of the film in terms of not taking it seriously, but it was a fun inclusion, worth a once over. Deleted scenes are also welcomed, and, it’s rare I can say this, but the deleted scenes were actually quite good, although the alternate ending scene was weak. As far as the features, these are: “In the Crosshairs,” “Instruments of Destruction,” “Digital Hits,” and “Settling the Score.” “In the Crosshairs” runs about twenty-five minutes and is a straight-forward making of feature including interviews with cast and crew. “Instruments of Destruction” was interesting; this feature profiles several of the weapons 47 uses in the film. “Digital Hits” was cool; it presented the gaming series that I have yet to break into but have always been interested in. Lastly, “Settling the Score” is a brief segment with an interview of composer Geoff Zanelli.