Aubrey MaloneHitman: Agent 47 (15A)
Time was that people would say: “You’ve read the book, now see the movie.” Today it’s more likely to be: “You’ve played the game, now see the movie.”
Hitman: Agent 47 has its origins in a video game. This no doubt explains why the action scenes, which are what you’ll remember most from it leaving the cinema, resemble what a teenager might experience on his PlayStation as he dispatches his targets to their happy hunting grounds with a joystick.
Does this form of gratuitous slaughter lead to violence in the real world? Or does it, on the contrary, act as an innocuous filter for it? It’s an old chestnut and probably an unanswerable question. One thing is sure, though: It certainly doesn’t conduce to pacifism.
Such issues aside, Hitman is quite a well-made film, even if the permutations of the plot – I use that term advisedly – are old hat. The ‘search for the father’ theme is as old as Ulysses and not even the sci-fi overtones can camouflage that.
A scientist, Dr Litvenko (Ciaran Hinds), created a set of super-assassins back in the day. Now some very bad people from a notorious syndicate want the formula for it so they can create their own. Litvenko’s daughter Katia (Hannah Ware) needs to get to him before they do. Standing in her way is the eponymous Agent 47 (Rupert Friend). This man kills people with the same nonchalance the rest of us might drink a cup of tea. But then a character called John Smith (Zachary Quinto) appears and offers to save her from Agent 47.
Surprises
So far so straightforward. But nothing is what it seems in this film. Expect lots of surprises before the final credits roll.
The strikingly beautiful Ware, who looks like a reconstructed Bond girl, is the main attraction. She also proves herself to be deadlier than the male when she discovers the talents her dad (now in poor health, alas) has hardwired into her DNA.
All the stars earn their keep. That’s perhaps more than you can say for the average gung-co caper. Rupert Friend does the cold-eyed killer well even if, by definition, this is a one-note performance. (Paul Walker was originally slated for the part but he died in a car crash before it started shooting). Hinds is good as the haunted scientist but maybe we’ve seen him in one too many avuncular cameo roles like this of late. Quinto is well named as John Smith: he has that bland boy-next-door look that wars against star quality.
Hitman is a formula film that does what it says on the tin. In other words, great special effects but not too hot in the brains department. There’s a man who refuses to die no matter how many bullets are pumped into him. An all-stops-out car chase which would render most people moribund but bequeaths this cast nary a scratch. A riveting finale which sees a helicopter crash through a building 9/11 style.
It’s not a film for all the family unless our modern world has re-defined what constitutes a family film nowadays. Some younger viewers (the target audience) may see it as tame by today’s standards.
Yesterday’s youngsters left films like this running along the street ‘shooting’ each other like mini-John Waynes. Today’s ones seem to prefer doing so on their computers. That’s a pity. But it’s the computer generation which will patronise something like this. And fund the sequel that seems mandatory.
*** Good