Sunday, May 18, 2008

THE HITMAN: 5.0 out of 5 stars


It usually rains in the Pacific Northwest. But when Chuck Norris is there it just hails...BULLETS!, April 3, 2008

The Chuck wagon keeps rolling with The Hitman. We, Sid the Elf, are only sad that eventually we will run out of Norris movies to review. Don't be at all shocked if we start reviewing Walker, Texas Ranger seasons soon. Anyway, The Hitman was a pleasant surprise to Sid. We knew the title, but we thought that there was no way Chuck would be playing a straight up hitman. He did, even if it was as an undercover cop. This just proves Chuck's depth, skill, and prowess as an actor.

At the start of the movie, Chuck plays a narcotics cop named Cliff Garrett. He is on a bust with his partner, who turns out to be dirty and shoots Chuck right in the chest, causing him to go through a plate glass window, fall three stories and land on a car. It was an absolutely harrowing sight to see a bloody Chuck being rolled into the hospital on a gurney. Somber mood in the North Pole at that point. Remember, this is Chuck, of course he wasn't dead. But he was pissed. He must have been really pissed, enough to infiltrate the mob undercover, become their top contract killer (or hitman, get it?), and painstakingly exact revenge on his bum of a partner and the gangsters who controlled him.

Now, Chuck goes by the name Danny Grogan, the fierce Irish hitman for the mob. Great names in this one, they probably took about 10 seconds to come up with. Adds to the B factor. He is called a mick several times throughout the film, which always gets a solid 8 on the comedy meter. And we thought we even heard Chuck call some guy a guido or something, and that always gets a solid 9 on the comedy meter if for no other reason than it makes Sid think of the legendary Dave Kleinfeld. Hey you, you wop! Anyway, imagine Chuck's already high level of toughness. Then it goes up when he plays a hitman, obviously. Now, he's playing an undercover cop hitman exacting revenge left and right! Ultra-tough, uber-tough movie all around. There was also a steamy love scene with Chuck, disturbing and hilarious at the same time. Speaking of disturbing and hilarious: what about the chunk of the film that focused on Chuck's To Catch a Predator-like relationship with the neighborhood kid? Made the film. The kid was being bullied by some mini-Nazis because he's black so Chuck taught him how to fight. Also, the kid went on to um... i guess star in Saved By the Bell: The New Class. Perfect! And, Sid really believes that Chuck used this opportunity to show that he could make an instructional karate video after The Hitman failed miserably. As a special added touch, the director, Aaron Norris(yep, Chuck's brother. Too good to be true, right?) gave us a fight scene between the black kid and his bully that has to be seen to be believed.

So, obviously, Chuck takes down everyone. The Italian mob, the French-Canadian mob, his dirty ex-partner, and the Iranian mob. The Iranian mob is possibly the most pivotal part in this film because their leader was a dead ringer for Borat. Sid is 138% convinced that Sasha Baron Cohen, or whatever, got high one night, caught The Hitman on cable at 2:30 am while eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch saw this guy and came up with the Borat character.

The Hitman definitely gets 5 stars from Sid the Elf. It had mobsters from Kazacstahn, the longest Norris mullet to date, and a future Saved by the Bell: The New Class cast member. There were too many tough lines from Chuck to count, including the famous scene that had Chuck calling roughly 24 guys "Camel Jockeys." You had an innumerable number of roundhouse kicks as always. And, introducing a new term to the reviews of B expert Sid the Elf, The Hitman had a DMF of 9. What is the DMF you ask? It's the Don Mattingly Factor. It has long been the theory of Sid the Elf that any good action B must have at least one guy that looks like Don Mattingly. You know, wavy mullet, handlebar mustache; all the things that make someone just look funny. Well, The Hitman had 9 by Sid's count! This is fitting because Don Mattingly's nickname? You guessed it. The Hitman. Coinsidence? Sid thinks not.
Click here for movie trailer. So tough it'll put hair on your chest:

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