Hitman: Agent 47

By: Robert Murphy

It's hard not to guff at the idea of a movie being based off of a video game when so many times before it has gone terribly wrong. This rings especially true when you think about the fact that the Hitman series has already tried it's hand at a big screen adaptation to the hit assassin games. But, Agent 47 proves to be a far better step in the right direction than it's predecessor was considering how closely it holds to the series that fans know and love.

For those of you who don't know, the series revolves around an organization of assassins who were genetically altered at a young age in order to become the very best killers that the world had ever known. These killers were bred to feel little to no sympathy for killing others, they were made stronger, faster and smarter than most ordinary humans so as to always have the upper hand in any situation. The project was eventually abandoned and the agents that had already been augmented disappeared to work for an unknown organization that supplies them with targets to kill, along with some incredible weaponry to compliment their skills.

 Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) is a legend among these assassins and not to bash Timothy Olyphant's interpretation of the famed killer in the 2007 film but Friend really brought the character to life in look and performance. Friend embodies the role of these assassins perfectly with his cold and calculating demeanor as well as conveying an element of emotion that these assassins apparently do not possess the ability to have anymore. While things are obviously not a complete adaptation to one of the Hitman's games you do feel the elements presented ring frighteningly true. This is especially true when you see Friend spring into action, he sleeps next to his famous twin Silverballers and within the first few moments of the film you see him take down a random thug with the deadly fiber wire and it's extremely exhilarating to watch unfold. 

Agent 47's mission this time around is to take out the head of an organization known as the Syndicate (popular bad guy name this year). The leader of this group Le Clerq (Thomas Kretschmann) is attempting to once again start up the agent program so he can have his own army of super powered killers at his disposal. Fortunately, he cannot do this without the scientist that engineered the agents in the first place, Dr. Litvenko (Ciaran Hinds), but he has been off the grid since he ended the program all those years ago. Le Clerq will not be deterred however an quickly discovers that Litvenko had a daughter, Katia van Dees (Hannah Ware), and is now searching for her in the hopes that she can lead them to her father.

As the story develops and introduces these new characters though things become increasingly more peculiar especially once you meet Katia. Right from the get go you can tell something is not quite right about her as she goes full Rainman on a woman in a Berlin library. She has also been augmented by her father but hers are far more strange and highly ridiculous and this is where the problems start with Agent 47. While she does get involved in the heavier action sequences, Katia's entire middle story involves lengthy training scenes with 47. It was almost like a complete pause for the progression of the story as 47 left her with little tests to solve that ultimately do nothing for the story. Characters that start to be presented with these augmentations make no earthly sense, the agents and their abilities are somewhat more believable as they only improve minor functions such as wit and strength but when you delve further from that then you've got a science fiction story. 

Things get even more ridiculous once you meet the top agent for Syndicate, John Smith (Zachary Quinto), who can literally stop bullets with his hand due to micro-armor put in under his skin. This was out there by large stretches of the imagination even by action movie standards and it further deepened the fact that there wasn't a satisfying villain for 47 to face. Kretschmann's Le Clerq was an underwhelming bad guy due to the fact that he is barely in the film except to briefly dispatch orders and to give an odd speech near the end of the story. While Quinto and Kretschmann due what they can with their roles, neither of them ever truly gets to shine as Le Clerq is undersold and Smith was just plain out there. 

Hitman: Agent 47 took all the right steps when it comes to creating a good adaptation of the Hitman series but outside of the world famous Agent 47 himself, things do not have as much success. Rupert Friend gives a deadly accurate performance as the bar coded assassin in more ways than one, he was funny without meaning to be and absolutely viscous when it came with dispensing of those who got in his way. If everybody else in the film met with as much success then we would have a stellar action movie on our hands but when you get down to it there isn't enough to back the big guy up.

Good:

- Crazy actions scenes

- References to the game and source material

- Rupert Friend as Agent 47

Bad:

- Poor bad guys

- Story enters incredibly ridiculous territory

- Katia van Dees entire augmentation and training scenes

Scully Rating: 6.0 out of 10