Hitman is a 2007 action film directed by Xavier Gens and based on the video game series of the same name. A gun-for-hire "Hitman" is a genetically-engineered assassin known as Agent 47. He is hired by a group, 'The Organization' and becomes ensnared in a political conspiracy. He finds himself pursued by both Interpol and the Russian military. The film stars Timothy Olyphant and Dougray Scott. Hitman was released on November 21, 2007. A sequel, under the working title of Hitman 2, is currently in pre-production.

Plot[link]

The film opens with a montage showing a group of bald children receiving tattoos of bar codes and receiving training in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. In these scenes, it is shown that those boys are raised to be assassins and trained to kill.

Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott) arrives at his house and realizes that it is broken into. He searches the house and discovers Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant) in his study, where the two talk about 47's life as a professional hitman working for an unknown contracters known as the Agency.

Three months before, 47 is completing a hit on a gang leader named Bwana Ovie (Eriq Ebouaney) in Niger. He receives a communication from his Agency contact, Diana (Lisa Jacobs), and is told he is to kill his next target, Russian President Mikhail Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen), publicly. He completes his mission as ordered, but before he can leave Russia he is contacted by his employers. They tell him that there is a witness to the assassination and order him to intercept her. When Agent 47 confronts her on the street, he realizes she's never seen him before. As they stare at each other, a civilian next to him is shot. Realizing he's been set up, Agent 47 calmly and silently walks away from the scene, so he could not make any suspicions.

His employers reveal his location to agents in the Russian FSB, who make plans to intercept him. As he is about to be taken, Diana personally calls him to warn him. She tells him that Belicoff ordered the hit on himself. After a dramatic escape from the hotel, 47 intercepts Nika (Olga Kurylenko), the woman who supposedly witnessed his hit. He interrogates her about Belicoff and discovers that Belicoff had body doubles in place. He deduces that he killed the real Belicoff and that a double has taken his place at the behest of a cabal of Russian hardliners who do not want political change.

As Nika and 47 attempt to take a train further into the Russian interior they are intercepted by more assassins from the Agency. 47 kills four of them before wounding Agent Whittier and his partner. Infuriated at yet another escape, the FSB and Agent Markov order Interpol to leave the country immediately. In the meantime, 47 contacts Agent Smith (James Faulkner) of the CIA. He offers Smith a deal - he will kill Udre Belicoff (Henry Ian Cusick), Mikhail's brother, in exchange for a favor from the CIA. Udre is an arms dealer and slave trader whom both the CIA and FSB have wanted dead for some time. He uses blackmail to influence Smith into accepting the deal. Agent Smith informs 47 that Udre had been planning something with a German arms dealer named Price. Intercepting him could lead 47 to Udre.

47 and Nika travel to Istanbul, where 47 abducts Price from a restaurant in order to pose as Price at a meeting with Udre. 47 later kills Udre and his henchmen at Udre's mansion outside the city. Belicoff's double is forced to attend Udre's funeral. 47 kidnaps Agent Markov and forces him to have his own FSB agents try to shoot Belicoff's double as he delivers a eulogy for Udre. Disguised as a soldier, 47 manages to kill all of Belicoff's double's guards and takes him into the archbishop's chamber in the church. He has a conversation with Belicoff's double who tries to reason with 47. He tells 47 that the Russian people will never let him get away with assassinating the president. Belicoff's double offers to let 47 leave if 47 leaves him alive. 47 instead kills him and then allows himself to be taken into custody by Interpol and Agent Whittier.

At this point Agent Smith delivers on his end of the deal, having the agents under his command intercept the Interpol convoy that is transporting 47 to the airport, giving 47 the distraction necessary to escape. The scene then flashes forward to the conversation between Agent Whittier and 47 occurring at Agent Whittier's house. After wrapping up their conversation, 47 reveals the body of a dead Hitman. They make a deal in which Agent Whittier will go along with 47's plan, admitting that the body in his home is the real 47. As 47 leaves, he turns to Agent Whittier and says that he hopes to never see Agent Whittier again.

Nika is shown picking up an envelope from an undisclosed sender. Inside it, there are papers and a message saying that she now owns a vineyard (she had told 47 of her childhood dream of having one). Meanwhile, 47 is watching her from afar, through the scope of his sniper rifle. He then looks at the corpse of another hitman, lying close to him, and says, "I told you to leave her alone. You should have listened." He then turns back, and walks away.

Cast[link]

• Timothy Olyphant as Agent 47: An orphaned child (though in the video games he is the result of cloning experiments), kidnapped and trained by the Organization to become an elite assassin. He is the main protagonist of the story.
  • Borislav Parvanov as young Agent 47
• Dougray Scott as Mike Whittier: An Interpol agent who has been tracking Agent 47 for quite some time. During this film, he finally gets to confront his mysterious target.
• Olga Kurylenko as Nika Boronina: A woman who is swept into companionship with Agent 47 as events unfold.
• Robert Knepper as Yuri Marklov: Lead agent of an FSB force. He joins in the chase to capture Agent 47.
• Ulrich Thomsen as Mikhail Belicoff: The President of Russia. He is targeted by Agent 47 as a mark early on in the film.
• Henry Ian Cusick as Udre Belicoff: An international criminal wanted by the CIA and the FSB, while protected by his brother Mikhail Belicoff, who is President of Russia.
• James Faulkner as Smith Jamison: A CIA agent who helps Agent 47 evade Interpol.

Production[link]

In February 2003, Hitman makers Eidos and IO Interactive entered negotiations with Hollywood production companies to adapt the video game to film.^[1] Twentieth Century Fox eventually acquired the rights and hired screenwriter Skip Woods to pen the screenplay with actor Vin Diesel executive producing and starring in the film.^[2] In December 2006, Vin Diesel stepped down from the role. In January 2007, Timothy Olyphant was cast into the lead role with director Xavier Gens attached at the helm.^[3] In March, actor Dougray Scott was cast as the antagonist to Agent 47, with Olga Kurylenko, Robert Knepper, Ulrich Thomsen, and Michael Offei also joining the cast. Production began the week of March 27, 2007 in Sofia, Bulgaria and lasted 12 weeks.^[4] A second unit also shot in locations including London, Istanbul, St. Petersburg, and Cape Town.^[5]

The release of the film was set back a few months before release, this was to allow for the reshooting of several scenes. The new scenes included a stand-off between 4 assassins who go on to participate in a sword fight, which replaced the original train platform sequence, simply consisting of Agent 47 facing off against one assassin. Reports before the film's release confirmed that not only reshoots were taking place, but that Fox may have totally removed Xavier Gens from his directing position and denied him the final cut. Nicolas de Toth was brought in at this stage to soften the edit and cut down material.^[6]

47's origins were also changed at this stage, Xavier Gens told an interviewer that whilst they are not directly dealing with the clone storyline, one scene (being the original train station sequence) which shows a bald, barcoded assassin (Jean-Marc Bellu) following Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant), another bald, barcoded assassin, is very explicit and showed his intention to keep him as a clone.^[7] The detail was likely changed to accommodate for the casting of actors of mixed races during reshoots, making it impossible for them to be clones (or at least clones of the same person).

Release[link]

Box office[link]

Hitman was originally stated to be released on October 12, 2007 in the United States and Canada,^[8] but the film's release was postponed to November 21, 2007.^[9] Hitman opened in 2,458 theaters in the United States and Canada, grossing $13,180,769 in its opening weekend, ranking fourth at the box office.^[10] The following weekend, Hitman opened in 12 markets, having the following highlights: $150,355 in 38 theaters in Indonesia, $224,449 in 37 theaters in Malaysia. and $244,329 in 32 theaters in the Philippines. In Taiwan, the film opened in fourth place with approximately $100,000. The film also performed weakly in Lebanon with $19,321 in 6 theaters.^[11] As of July 2, 2008, the film has grossed $39,687,694 in the United States and Canada and $60,245,563 in other territories for a worldwide total of $99,933,257, exceeding its estimated budget of $24,000,000.^[10][12] The DVD sales equal $27,858,148 in the US alone, putting the total gross for Hitman at around $128 million USD, not counting television airing rights.^[13]

Critical reception[link]

The film received generally negative reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 14% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 98 reviews, with an average score of 3.7/10.^[14] At the website MetaCritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film earned an unfavorable rating of 35/100 based on 22 reviews.^[15]

The most common complaints are a lacking, often confusing plot, dry acting and extreme violence. However, film critic Roger Ebert gave it three stars out of four, saying "Hitman stands right on the threshold between video games and art. On the wrong side of the threshold, but still, give it credit".^[16] In 2009, Time listed the film on their list of top ten worst video games movies.^[17]

Home video[link]

An unrated version of Hitman was released in the high definition Blu-ray format on March 11, 2008, and features extras including deleted scenes, an alternate ending and a gag reel. This version also features a special digital copy of the film which can be transferred to a portable media device like an iPod.^[18] A standard definition DVD was released on March 11 as well in three versions. A single disc theatrical version, a single disc unrated version, and an unrated special edition including many extras, and the digital copy mentioned above.^[19] The unrated DVD is one minute longer than the theatrical cut and includes a few extended scenes with more blood.^[20] The UK version of the film was available on Blu-ray and DVD from 31 March 2008.

The French Blu-ray version of the film came with 10 deleted scenes, accompanied with French audio commentary by Xavier Gens. Some of the scenes included are the original assassination, in which Ovie survives, is taken to hospital only to be killed via lethal injection by 47 disguised as a doctor. The alternate train platform sequence which features no sword fight, as well as showing the older assassin biting off his tongue to avoid giving answers to 47, and an extended departure sequence between 47 and Nika, which shows Yuri and his men stopping their train and boarding it to look for 47.

An alternate ending in the Special Features of the DVD show 47 watching Nika through his Sniper Scope as she opens the envelope. She then turns down a corner of a small street to be shot dead in a drive-by, possibly by men loyal to the organization behind the fake Belicoff, all while 47 watches.

Sequel[link]

IESB has confirmed that 20th Century Fox has hired writer Kyle Ward to pen the script for the sequel to Hitman.^[21] Adrian Askarieh, Daniel Alter and Chuck Gordon will return as producers. American actor David Hess, who died in October 2011, had been reported to have an as-yet-unnamed role. Daniel Benmayor has signed to direct the sequel.^[22] Daniel Casey will completely rewrite the film, or base it upon the previous script by Kyle Ward. Its been said that Agent 47 will come back with a vengeance in the sequel.^[23] The new installment will have an original story and characters, but will retain the look and feel of Hitman Absolution.^[24] It is still currently unconfirmed whether or not Timothy Olyphant will return as Agent 47.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Hitman at the Internet Movie Database
• Hitman at AllRovi
• Hitman at Rotten Tomatoes
• Hitman at Metacritic
• Hitman at Box Office Mojo
• Hitman at the TCM Movie Database