Retro Film Review: The Hitman (1991)
Back in 1980s, Chuck Norris used to be synonym for the action films. He couldn't, of course, top the success and fame of big action names like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, but sheer quantity of his films guaranteed that he was household name among shoot'em up and beat'em up genre aficionados. That quantity was mostly provided by Cannon Group, prolific production company that dominated the B-movie market in previous decade by flooding it with cheap, formulaic and, more often than not, unwatchable genre products. THE HITMAN, 1991 action thriller directed by Chuck's brother Aaron, is one of the last among them.
Chuck Norris here plays Seattle cop betrayed, shot and left for dead by his partner (which shouldn't surprise anyone, considering the fact that the partner is being played by Michael Parks, specialised for roles of usually very mean characters). Surviving the shooting, cop is pronounced dead and hired as deep undercover agent. He infiltrates the underworld circles in Seattle and becomes their top hitman, using his abilities to start brutal war between three major crime organisations - Italians, French Canadians and Iranians.
Since it is rather absurd to expect great acting ability from Chuck Norris, at least not in this kind of movie, the biggest attraction of this film should have been action. Well, the action in this film falls flat - it is boring, repetitive and not at all exciting. It is nothing more than monotonous series of scenes that contains violence too brutal even for this type of films. We know very little about Norris' character while, on the other hand, gangsters are portrayed with more human dimension. In the end we almost feel sorry for them, since they are shown totally powerless against Norris and his unstoppable and bloody crusade. During the film, somebody obviously became aware of that problem, so the screenwriter introduced the subplot dealing with the black boy who gets adopted by Norris. That caused another problem - any questions about nature of that relationship had to be quashed with another subplot – this one dealing with lady lawyer who sleeps with the hero and gets killed after fulfilling that screenplay obligation. The photography in this film is dark, setting is depressive and this forgettable piece of 1980s style cinema leaves viewers without any reason to justify the hour and half spent watching it.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on April 24th 1999)
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