Review of Big Hit, The

Introduction

Believe it or not, I found myself wondering vaguely about what had become of that s***e phenomenon which started all this boy-band nonsense, namely "The New Kids on The Block" the other day, and then this movie turned up. Being fairly sad and obsessive about music (particularly crap old music), I recognised Mark Wahlberg literally within hours and thought "this should be interesting..." I`ve since discovered that only I, out of the entire population of the planet, was unaware that Wahlberg had started an acting career, but revelations like this are not unusual in my life. It does get you down though, constantly telling people things they already know..
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My Wife has just informed me that it was Danny Wahlberg, Mark Wahlberg`s brother, who was the guy in New Kids on The Block. I don`t know - they look identical to me. Anyway, it took ages to write the above, and I`m not one to let the facts get in the way of a good story, so let`s just pretend it`s a contraversial subject so I don`t have to delete whole swathes of my review...

Video

Something I rarely do is read other people`s reviews before I write up a movie. I made an exception in this case, largely because I had forgotten who played which character. I was amazed to find that it had received universally bad press. Is it because it`s got Wahlberg in it? Is it because the movie is crap and I`ve got bad taste? Whatever, I thought it was great. The film is actually produced by Wesley Snipes, which shows in that it`s got an element of random, not entirely sure what`s going on, but I`ve got this nice fold up chair type feel about it. If you know what I mean, which is unlikely.
It`s actually a very funny film, I think. The basic premise is that a group of hitmen, including Wahlberg as Mel and Lou Diamond Philips (various cop stuff) as someone else all work for the guy who plays Cisco in deep space nine as guns for hire. Oh yes, that`s it, Lou Diamond Philip`s character is called Cisco, oddly. Talk about your product placement - no-one`s ever called Bay or Cabletron in films, are they?
Anyway, Mel is the only guy who actually does any of the hitting in the gang - he`s a one man army, the others just kind of hang around chatting whilst he wipes out hotel floors full of people to get to his target, although he is shouting all the time for help. There used to be a "Viz" sketch called "The Pathetic Sharks" which featured some sharks who were scared of people, water, fish etc. etc. and spent their whole time chatting about weather and clothes. These are the pathetic hitmen, with the exception of Mel.
Mel is a very loyal chap, he runs two homes and supports two girlfriends, finding it impossible to ditch either of them because of his oft stated wish "for everyone to like me". There are a couple of running jokes throughout, the funniest being the fact that Mel has an overdue rental video which he keeps forgetting to return, resulting in several threatening phone calls from the nerd at the store.
There is also the constant Blase (can`t find that little squiggly character, sorry) treatment of death and corpses, with Mel storing bodies in his shower, bits in the garage etc.
Cisco decides that they need to make some money on the side, so he sets up a kidnap of a rich Japanese Businessman`s daughter. Unfortunately she is a) very attracted to Mel, which is mutual and b) The God-daughter of the gang`s boss.
Things get predictabley hectic, loud and shooty.

Audio

Dolby Digital 5.1
Doesn`t work out of the left rear, although that may be because one of the kids pulled the wire out. Might not affect you.

Features

Subtitles in foreign.
Interesting hairstyles.
Producers / Directors talking and that.
Sorry. I`m making this up now.

Conclusion

Very enjoyable in summary. I`d been listening to a Radiohead album in the car (I`m not allowed indoors before dark) before watching this and it`s a great antidote. It does the action guns bang bit perfectly well and has enough crap humour and quirk to keep your attention, if you`re me, which you`re not.