When I first saw the preview for "Hitman," a movie based on the popular video game, I thought that it was going to be another brainless killing movie. Sure, the trailer was very entertaining, but just because a trailer is good doesn't mean the movie will be. "Hitman," though, lived up to its trailer.
The hitman is Agent 47 (Timothy Olyphant, "Live Free or Die Hard"). In the beginning credits, his past is explained.
He was raised by The Organization, a group "so secret that no one knows it exists." It has ties to all governments, but its main purpose is to train the perfect assassin.
The Organization gets its human experiments by taking rejected and orphaned boys and raising them in combat and Catholicism. They also make all the boys look alike by shaving their heads and tattooing a barcode on the back.
Agent 47 is different from the other hitmen, though. He sometimes feels that his job is tiring, and you can tell by the way he does things that he's fed up.
While on a mission to assassinate President Belicoff of Russia, 47 runs into trouble. He successfully hit his target, but someone else was trying to do the same thing - only he ended up shooting Belicoff's bodyguard. Who is the mysterious second shooter?
After the mission, 47 heads back to his hotel, unaware that the KGB is on his tail. It's a good thing he keeps his room rigged because if he didn't, the movie would have had to end right there.
In a battle at the hotel, 47 kills 16 of Russia's finest. He knows that he has been set up, and he is furious. Soon 47 finds out that there was a witness to the assassination -- Nika Boronina, a beautiful Russian woman with short black hair, a lip ring, and a dragon tattoo under her left eye.
While questioning Nika, 47 finds out that she knows nothing about him killing Belicoff. But she did know that Belicoff has an interesting secret. The secret she tells him means that 47 has not yet completed his mission.
What is the secret? Will Agent 47 complete his mission? You'll have to watch to find out.
Although I thought "Hitman" was going to be terribly stupid, it was actually rather good - a mind-boggling action thriller. I especially enjoyed the fight scenes. They showed that he Agent 47 a master at his occupation, and Olyphant did a very good job portraying that.
The "Hitman" DVD is an unrated version of this film. I kept the review PG-13, but if seeing violence, murder and nudity bothers your conscience, then you should skip "Hitman."
The DVD comes as a single disc or a two-disc set. The one-disc DVD is basically just the movie. The two-disc set includes short features on the making of the movie, the different weapons used in the film, the movie's score and the "Hitman" video game. Deleted scenes - including an alternate ending - and a gag reel are also included.