Xavier Gans’ HITMAN arrives in North America before his hit horror flick FRONTIERE(S).  FRONTIERE(S), his first full length feature was more unpolished but showed great promise of him as a horror/action film director.  (I caught FRONTERE(S) at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.) HITMAN is extremely well-made, stylishly framed, often stunningly shot (great camera placement and tracking) and filled with grandiose music like the wedding march Ave Maria accompanying the opening credits.  The origin of HITMAN is told effectively with images here. 

Basically a simple story based on a cat-and-mouse chase between predator and top trained assassin, HITMAN’s plot runs very similar to the recent Jet Li action flick WAR.  As in both movies, the cat is an obsessive agent who would stop at nothing to find the highly trained assassin.  Both have a twist in the plot involving skin grafting with identity change.  Most of the action in HITMAN takes place in St. Petersburg where the assassination target is the Russian President Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen). The cast speak in English with good Russian accents.  HITMAN was originally supposed to star Vin Diesel.  He bowed up but still served as executive producer in the film.  But Olyphant makes a welcome addition as an action lead. 

HITMAN is as beautifully orchestrated as the Ave Maria heard at the start.  Narrative-wise, writer Skip Woods (SWORDFISH) has penned a haphazard job.  In the beginning, Interpol agent Mike (Dougray Scott) is mentioned to be a family man with kids but nothing else is heard of the family after. The romance between HITMAN, known only as 47 (Timothy Olyphant) and Nika (Olga Kurilenko) is clumsy and exists only to offer the targeted audience (teens and young males) some skin to gawk at.  Director Gans surprisingly keeps the sex down to a minimum and the action up. 

Still the problem arises in that one can only do so much for a film based on a game and subject to Hollywood rules of formulaic filmmaking.  Those familiar with the Eidos Franchise have claimed that this film is accurate to the minute details of the video game.  Gans’ other film FRONTIERE(S) is more imaginative and allows him more freedom to showcase his talent.  That one should be seen.