Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko,
Robert Knepper, Ulrich Thomsen, Ian Henry Cusick, Michael Offei, Christian Erickson, Joe Sheridan, James Faulkner
Written by Skip Woods, based on the Eidos game
Certification UK 15 | US X
Runtime 93 minutes
Directed by Xavier Gens
Well, here's a sentence that I never, ever thought I'd find myself typing: at long last, we have a videogame-based film that doesn't suck. While it doesn't break the mould or reinvent the wheel, Hitman is certainly no Super Mario Bros, or Streetfighter, or Mortal Kombat, or Wing Commander, or Doom, or Resident Evil, or ... well, you get my point.
In fact, forget that Hitman is even based on a videogame; just enjoy it as an action film that's got guns galore, buckets of blood and even the occasional breast or two. Of course, as you'd expect, it also lacks brains and a coherent plot — but hey, that never stopped the likes of Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris or Vin Diesel (who's listed as one of this film's producers). A shaven-headed Timothy Olyphant (last seen as cyber-terrorist Thomas Gabriel in Die Hard 4.0) is Agent 47, an assassin for hire who works for a mysterious group known only as The Agency. In an opening sequence vaguely reminiscent of the TV series Dark Angel, we see 47 and a bunch of other young orphans being trained as killers, having their heads shaved and barcodes tattooed on the backs of their necks. So that's his backstory — an unwanted, unnamed man who was trained as an assassin. And he's the best, with more than 100 kills to his name (well, in this case, to his number). His latest assignment is to go to Russia and kill the president (sadly, no, it's not Putin) — this one's named Belicoff (Thomsen), and lo and behold, shortly after 47 kills him, he pops up on telly, as alive and well as you or I. And before you can say body-double, you quickly realise that something funny is going on; Agent 47 has been set up, and now he has Interpol (in the shape of Dougray Scott) and the Russian secret police on his tail. And he's also got Russian prostitute Nika (Kurylenko) tagging along. And trying to seduce him. And removing her clothes at every opportunity (which is no bad thing).
From here, Hitman gets silly and illogical (not that it had a lot of logic to start with). The Agency sends along dozens of other, equally-bald killers to take out 47. Why? We never find out. Why was he hired to "kill" Belicoff in the first place? We never find out. Why won't 47 sleep with the beautiful Nika? We never find out, but just just assume he's insane. And why, when he's trying to remain hidden and incognito, does 47 wander around with his bald head and barcode tattoo exposed for all the world to see? Again, one just assumes that he is insane. So yes, plenty of faults, inconsistencies and silliness throughout. But for all that, Hitman is still an enjoyable enough ride.