The Big Hit
USA 1998
Reviewed by Danny Leigh
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
California. Neurotic assassin Melvin Smiley and three fellow hitmen break into the home of a wealthy pimp on behalf of crimelord Paris. Melvin shoots the pimp dead. His cohort Cisco asks him to take part in a kidnapping the following day. Melvin refuses. He returns to the suburban condo he shares with his fiancée Pam. She has lent Melvin's savings to her parents to square her father's gambling debts. Panicked, Melvin accepts Cisco's invitation.
Cisco's quarry turns out to be Keiko, the teenage daughter of film producer Jiro Nishi. After her abduction, a reluctant Melvin agrees to hold Keiko at his house, despite the presence of both Pam and her visiting parents. Melvin and Keiko find themselves attracted to one another. On learning Nishi is a close friend of Paris, Cisco blames the kidnapping on Melvin; Paris orders him to kill Melvin. When Cisco arrives at Melvin's house, Melvin and Keiko flee. Cisco pursues Melvin to a video shop. In the subsequent mêlée, both men are apparently killed when the building explodes. Weeks later, Keiko's chauffeur picks up Melvin - he was shielded from the blast by a promotional display for one of her father's films. The pair decide to elope.
Review
For its first ten minutes the raison d'être of Che-Kirk Wong's US debut seems obvious. As bullets fly in fetishistic slow motion, turning a pimp's Jacuzzi red with his own blood, The Big Hit resembles little more than a compendium of brutal stylised action sequences, assembled to introduce the Hong Kong-born director of Crime Story and Rock 'n' Roll Cop to western audiences - which, according to Wong himself, is exactly what was intended. Initially, this purpose-built précis of past glories for international consumption proves grimly effective: camera angles are vertiginous, dialogue minimal, the violence reliably stylised.
But after the frenetic opening the film reveals ambitions beyond amassing a prodigious body count. There is, for example, something slightly odd about a graphic gun battle in which attention is repeatedly drawn not to the on-screen carnage but to the costumes and set dressing. Wong was once a fashion designer. While the abundant ballistic hardware on display is, of course, subject to innumerable ardent close-ups, no less reverence is invested in the detailing of a Gaultier shirt or a gangster's pristine office space. Similarly, Ben Ramsey's labyrinthine narrative has grander aspirations than simply providing dialogue to punctuate the gunplay. Littering his script with the kind of priapic badinage young, male screenwriters now routinely ascribe to the criminal fraternity, Ramsey often appears eager to get the bloodshed over as quickly as possible in order to accommodate the next wisecrack.
A jarring uncertainty of tone is the outcome. Juxtaposing comedy and extreme violence is precarious, requiring masterly timing. But even the darkest humour looks glib when the punchline is a gunshot wound. The ceaseless flippancy and farcical motifs at the heart of The Big Hit make queasy companions for the storyline's slew of corpses. Yet although Wong's attempts at black comedy are badly misjudged, he has made the effort to learn from some of his more successful antecedents. Grosse Pointe Blank, in particular, seems to be a touchstone here.
Unfortunately Mark Wahlberg brings none of John Cusack's range or subtlety to his role. Instead he reprises his performance as Boogie Nights' Dirk Diggler with unnerving precision. With few of the supporting cast able to rouse themselves from a stupor, it is left to Lou Diamond Phillips to inject zest into the proceedings. Mugging his way through every scene with incipient mania, he shows all the signs of an actor relishing his work; in which case, some good has come of this otherwise vacant and ill-conceived film.
Credits
- [Wong Chi-Keung]
- Producers
- Warren Zide
- Wesley Snipes
- Screenplay
- Ben Ramsey
- Director of Photography
- Danny Nowak
- Editors
- Robin Russell
- Pietro Scalia
- Production Designer
- Taavo Soodor
- Music
- Graeme Revell
- ©TriStar Pictures Inc
- Production Companies
- TriStar Pictures presents an Amen Ra films/Zide-Perry/Lion Rock production
- Executive Producers
- John Woo
- Terence Chang
- John M. Eckert
- Co-producers
- Craig Perry
- Victor McGauley
- Roger Garcia
- Production Co-ordinator
- Lori Greenberg
- Unit Production Manager
- John M. Eckert
- Location Manager
- Dorigen Fode
- Post-production Supervisor
- Pasia Schonberg
- Assistant Directors
- Jeff Authors
- Eric Potechin
- Patrick Arias
- Script Supervisor
- Samantha Armstrong
- Casting
- Roger Mussenden
- Los Angeles Associate:
- Karen Church
- Canada:
- Maria Armstrong
- Canadian Associate:
- Jeff Marshall
- Camera Operators
- Peter Rosenfeld
- Ray Wong Che-Wai
- Digital Effects/Animation
- C.O.R.E Digital Pictures
- Sony Pictures Image Works
- D-Rez
- Special Effects
- Services:
- Malivoire Pictures Inc
- Key:
- Joseph Mercurio
- Assistant Key:
- Tony Van Den Ecker
- Supervisor:
- Kaz Kobielski
- Miniatures
- Jjamb Productions Inc
- Art Directors
- Andrew Stearn
- Craig Lathrop
- Set Decorator
- Enrico Campana
- Scenic Artist
- John Bannister
- Storyboard Artist
- James Craig
- 'Taste the Golden Spray' Sculpture
- Keillor film Industries Inc
- Costume Designer
- Margaret Mohr
- Wardrobe
- Key:
- Linda Petty
- Supervisor:
- Quita Alfred
- Key Make-up Artist
- Donald J. Mowat
- Key Hair Stylist
- James Brown
Opticals/Titles- Cinema Research Corporation
- Orchestrations
- David Russo
- Music Supervisor
- Pilar McCurry
- Music Editor
- Joshua Winget
- Scoring Mixer
- Mark Currie
- Soundtrack
- "The Fun Lovin' Criminal" by Hugh Morgan, Brian Leiser, Steve Borgovini, performed by Fun Lovin' Criminals; "I'm the Man" by Joe Jackson, performed by Buck-O-Nine; "What U On" by Samuel Lindley, Carl Mitchell, LaTanya Hughes, Frederick Taylor, Ray Gregory, performed by LaTanya; "Voto Latino" by Ismael Fuentes De Garay, performed by Molotov; "Cruise" by Haldane Browne, Chad Simpson, Wallace Wilson, performed by Red Rat; "Apache" by Cheryl Cook, Michael Wright, performed by Sugarhill Gang; "Magic Carpet Ride" by Robert Clivilles, David Cole, Norman Cook, performed by The Mighty Dub Katz; "The World Is New" by Brian Mashburn, performed by Save Ferris; "Watch Where You Lay Your Head" by Earl Stevens, Marvin Whitemon, performed by E-40; "Someone to Call My Own" by Monica Behan, Melanie Vasquez, performed by Behan Johnson; "Act on It" by M. Cenac, Scott Kluesner, Craig Miller, Jason Vasquez, performed by Funkdoobiest; "She's the One" by Karl Wallinger, performed by World Party; "Gots Like Come on Thru" by Ellery Chambers, Bob James, performed by Buddha Monk; "Don't Sleep" by Mark Wahlberg, Johnny Lee Jackson, performed by Mark Wahlberg
- Sound Design
- Sandy Gendler
- Production Mixer
- Douglas Ganton
- Re-recording Mixers
- Don White
- Andy Koyama
- Keith Elliott
- Brad Thornton
- Supervising Sound Editors
- Wayne Griffin
- Michael O'Farrell
- Dialogue Editor
- Steve Barden
- Effects Editors
- Mark Gingras
- Tom Bjelic
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- David Giammarco
- Foley
- Artists:
- Andy Malcolm
- Terry Burke
- Goro Koyama
- Mixers:
- Tony Van Den Akker
- Ron Mellegers
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- John Stoneham Jr
- Lau Chi-Ho
Gun Supervisor- John Berger
- Armourer
- Peter Phillips
- Film Extract
- King Kong Lives
(1986)- Cast
- Mark Wahlberg
- Melvin Smiley, 'Skipper'
- Lou Diamond Phillips
- Cisco
- Christina Applegate
- Pam Shulman
- Avery Brooks
- Paris
- Bokeem Woodbine
- Crunch
- Antonio Sabato Jr
- Vince
- Lainie Kazan
- Jeanne Shulman, Pam's mother
- Elliott Gould
- Morton Shulman, Pam's father
- Sab Shimono
- Jiro Nishi
- China Chow
- Keiko Nishi, Jiro's daughter
- Robin Dunne
- Gump, the stutterer
- Lela Rochon
- Chantel
- Danny Smith
- video store kid
- Joshua Peace
- Lance
David Usher- Sergio
- Hardee T. Lineham
- accountant
- Gerry Mendocino
- slave trader
- Robert Vernon Eaton
- John Stoneham Sr
- pimps
- Nicola Jones
- blond
- Alexa Gilmour
- Aly, Keiko's friend
- John Stoker
- Sid Mussberger, the neighbour
- Cotton Mather
- Moe
- Derek Peels
- Windbush
- Tig Fong
- Kaya
- Danny Lima
- Aaron the limo driver
- Morgan Freeman
- boy in hotel lobby
- Giovahann White
- Paris's son
- Bobby Hannah
- Paris's driver
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar films (UK)
- 8,213 feet
- 91 minutes 15 seconds
- Dolby/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe Toronto