Timothy Olyphant’s Agent 47 may be stiff and mechanical, but, hey, what do you expect from a video game adaptation?
Video game movies are a strange animal. When it comes to the games themselves, plot continuity is negotiable as long as there is sufficient action to make up for any glitches. Expectations are generally higher for movies, but the filmmakers run the risk of taking too many liberties and upsetting their audience. The film adaptation of Hitman is a prime example of this. It also displays some other oddities specific to the genre; dialogue that would be ridiculous in other films seems curiously fitting here; character development is the last thing on anyone’s mind; and, most notably, Timothy Olyphant’s Agent 47 is helped, not hurt, by his stiff, mechanical acting.
The most controversial change made from the game (at least, as far as obsessive gamers are concerned) is 47’s ability to find mercy for Nika (Olga Kurylenko), a character tied into the plot at great effort and for obvious reasons. Nika is a prostitute and a prisoner of the Russian government and is supposed to be 47’s love interest, or something akin to it. The closest he ever gets to “I love you” is “eat your sandwich, or I’m putting you back in the trunk,” but this is a step in the right direction for someone who usually kills everyone he no longer has a use for.
The rest of the cast is hilariously stereotypical, and thus serves its purpose dutifully. There’s the corrupt Russian police force, the drug-addicted arms dealers and the international agent who has dedicated his life to tracking 47, guided by a series of convenient gut instincts. All the pieces of a solid action flick are in place, and the movie is executed efficiently, if not always with great artistic flair.
As with most video game movies, Hitman probably tries to be too smart. Eerie and abrupt flashbacks are meant to stand in place of character development, but the film would be better served by just abandoning the effort altogether. The biggest groan comes when 47 crashes into a hotel room, only to find its occupants playing the Hitman video game. That moment encapsulates the whole experience of this movie — it was fun until you reminded us what we were watching.
