nmyworld

I recently saw this abysmal film. The dialog was atrocious and unbelievable, the pace was sloppy and never should have allowed the film past test audiences, and the plot was convoluted and difficult to follow — not to mention entirely forgettable. But this film doesn’t just show how horribly bad Hollywood is at making films these days: certain fan defense also has me thinking that America is ready to accept mediocrity culturally and, eventually, internationally.

First, let me state that I played the first Hitman game as a young teenager and never had the patience to complete it in the way the developers intended. It was not until the latest installment of the game, Blood Money, was released, that I set out to play the game as it was intended: silently, carefully, and precise. What quickly becomes obvious are the intentions of the developers. While they allow you go in and simply grind everyone to a pulp with your M4 with a drum magazine and laser sight, it rewards the player for killing only the target. Quietly; no witnesses; a silent assassin. Not only that, but Blood Money portrays the 47 character as silent, calm, calculating, and ruthless yet quick to not get civilians involved. The film adaptation compares more favorably to Godzilla than to the Hitman video games.

Throughout the entirety of the film, Hitman, stealth is sacrificed for the sake of flash. For instance, in one scene, 47 is able to get into a nightclub under another man’s name in order to meet an arms dealer so that he can assassinate him. But, of course, his identity is compromised and in a distinctly un-47 moment, Olyphant begins insulting everyone, then proceeds to kill every single person in the room with two automatic weapons while they were all firing at him. Not only is this not the most ridiculous part of the film, it’s also not the most out of character. 47 just talks too much. He smiles, quips, and jokes with the people around him, acting more like an average Joe than an orphan trained since childhood to kill (a far cry from him being a genetically altered clone in the video games). But this perhaps could be due to his being an orphan rather than a clone, so I will let this piece of Hollywood dumbing-down-to-appeal-to-more crap slide a bit. The parts that I cannot let slide, are the things that should have been painfully easy to write given the character: dialog and character development.

I never cared that Timothy Olyphant was chosen for the part. He is a decent actor and — despite looking like quite ridiculous as a bald man — he did an admirable job with the crap he was handed. The dialog wasn’t just crap, it was the kinda of crap that gets stuck to the bottom of the toilet bowl after a hearty Thanksgiving load. At no point in the film was anything uttered believable, save a couple of parts with the Russian agents and the Interpol guy. Though I feel I just enjoyed these parts more because they weren’t as crappy as 47’s dialog. He should be the easiest character in the history of cinema for which to write dialog. He should never say much, make no friends, leave no witnesses, never, under any circumstances should he smile or joke with some prostitute he met five minutes ago, and he should never say more than four sentences in an appearance unless he absolutely must. Unfortunately for Olyphant, he had to pretend as if he knew how a ruthless assassin would speak and act if he suddenly fell in love with prostitute. The result? A badly written, awkwardly acted performance from Olyphant that detracted from the film as a whole.

While I could rant almost endlessly about the flaws and the (extremely) few merits of the film, I will instead continue on to something more important: Why are some people defending this movie? Why lower your expectations so low that even this steaming pile of garbage seems like a decent film? Even taken as an action film, Hitman deserves no better than a total fail rating. The action was forced (seriously, swords?), uninteresting (Bourne ripoffs already?), and almost entirely unbelievable (a helicopter?). Taken as a crappy video game adaptation, it stays the course of being a waste of time and money. So why do people like it?

I have a theory. Hollywood has been fooling America into believing the crap they put out is worth some increasing amount of money (I paid $8.00 to see this crap!), that Americans eventually begin to believe it. I think even Hollywood is beginning to believe it. At the Hitman Forum, there are the fan boys that will go crazy over anything starring a bald man with a bar code on his head, but there are the few who support the film as a genuine quality action film. They defend the plot as easily followable (something that, if debated, is already enough to question the abilities of the director), the action as intense (which, I assure you, is a downright lie unless you have never seen another action movie), and the dialog as believable. I should not even have to debunk the last point. Just see it if you don’t believe me.

The celebration of mediocrity is the mark of a stagnating culture. The fact that this horrible film is currently receiving a 6.7/10 on IMDB is a testament to America’s infatuation with mediocrity. I’m not going to push better films on you, as I shouldn’t have to and most of you probably would call me pretentious or snobby, anyway, ignoring everything I have to say and go back to driving your shitty American car, listening to your shitty American pop song, while working at your shitty American job. The fact that the film receives less than %15 at Rotten Tomatoes is, at least, a bit comforting. There are still people (critics in this case) who champion fine, lasting culture and unfortunately, they are not much liked by middle class Americans who laud the mediocre and forgotten and abhor the timeless. Hitman will be forgotten in no less than a month. Great films last forever.

Do not support this film. Don’t speak of it anymore, definitely don’t see it. Take back your culture.