hitman

The weekend rental was hitman.

It's based on a popular game series, though I've never personally played any of the games - indeed I know very little about the games as it goes.

Unfortunately, it did nothing to go against the general rule that film adaptations of games are poor.

The reasons for this were rather many and varied.

Hitman - as the name implies - features a hitman as its central character. The hitman in question, we're told, is the product of a secret organisation that takes lost and missing children and turns them into hired killers.

There's a hint that the organisation in question is of some religious nature, but we don't really find out anything about it, and this is one of the problems. Not so much that they don't tell us anything about the organisation, but it's more to do with how it relates to our main character.

See, the problem is I didn't really care about him.

In a game, empathy with the main character is sort of irrelevant, because you play the main character. In a film we need stuff to relate too. Or, of course, the opposite - if we're not supposed to like them we need to know why.

Now they sort of try to do that using a montage sequence over the credits. But, to be frank, it's piss poor. It's stylistically done and what elements of brutality there are are kinda hidden or have less impact because of it.

So it's failing from the get-go - why care about this kid and the grown up version? I've not enough to go on.

But there are also more fundamental problems. Naturally, the film is about a particular assassination. However, it's a little confusing how and what is going on. It also seems riddled with plot-holes and co-incidences.

There's one bit where another hitman from the organisation shows up and seems to try to shoot our guy. But our guy seems totally un-phased by this and instead of immediately assuming some sort of double-cross or problem, like a normal person would, it's only later that he seems to cotton on, and then apparently only because he's directly told he's in trouble. (Told by someone we've never met before and find out nothing about, btw - maybe if you've played the games it's a little bonus thing, but for us normal people it's just totally random.)

But the weird thing is that the plot, even though it's a little confusing, is also very generic. It's difficult to explain - it's like initially the filmmakers assume you know what's going on because they're re-using other people's plot devices, so they don't really explain. Instead, stuff just happens, but because you've not be told you get a bit confused.

Then, the filmmakers think to themselves "hmm, what if they didn't get that?" so they add in some explanatory dialogue after the fact. You hear that dialogue and realise what's going on. But you also realise that you've seen it before.

I'm sure that makes no real sense, but I know what I mean.

Another aspect of well-worn-ness is in the action. It really feels like it slipped out of the 1980s. Now that's okay, but a hallmark of 1980s action films is the one-line quip. This quip clues you in that they know it's all a bit daft too.

But because our hitman is basically a silent slab of muscle there are virtually no quips, so it just comes across as tastelessly ultra-violent.

It's quite poor.

Oh, and while the idea of a hitman wandering about with a barcode tatood on his totally bald head might seem like a cool conceit in the game it comes across as just plain daft in the film. i mean, if you're a hitman you don't want to be standign out like a soar thumb, right? Well a baldy with a barcode does stand out like a soar thumb. So much so that you wonder why members of the public aren't pointing and staring.

Also, no extras at all.