In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from my local public library.
When we first meet Willie (Terence Stamp), he’s being questioned by a barrister (Jim Broadbent in a cameo) while testifying against previous partners in crime. What’s more, he’s doing so simply because he feels he should, or so he says (maybe he is required to say that in a British court in order for the testimony to be accepted). The role Willie will play in the upcoming drama is announced via a screen card reading simply “The Target…” and in case we don’t get the meaning he’s serenaded from the courtroom by a group of tough guys in the gallery singing “We’ll Meet Again.”
Then we see a hooded person getting conked on the head and stuffed into a car, and Willie’s second role as “The Hostage…” is revealed via card, so we know he’s intended to survive for at least a while. Shots of Myron (a punkish Tim Roth) and Braddock (John Hurt looking like 10 miles of bad road) follow a screen card reading “The Killer…” (singular) and now that we know we know the roles of all the main players, it remains only to sit back and watch the drama play out.
Braddock and Myron must have been educated at the Mack Sennett School for Wannabe Gangsters, because they’re about as good at their jobs as the Keystone Cops were at policing and what should have been a simple road trip from Zaragoza to Paris becomes a comedy of incompetencies and should-have-known-betters.
The first bump comes when they stop at what they think is a safe apartment only to find it occupied by the Australian criminal Harry (Bill Hunter, whose performance in this film led to his casting as the mechanic Bob in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). Guess who soon finds himself on the receiving end in the first of this film’s 8 killings? Harry’s much younger Spanish mistress Maggie (Laura del Sol) is taken hostage and provides a welcome note of variety during what would otherwise be a road trip with three not terribly interesting British gangsters. If you want something extra to ponder why watching this film, here’s a suggestion: how does the person identified as the apprentice fulfill that role and who’s their master?
Flashbacks filling in the background of the main characters are intercut with recent and present-day action, and the most interesting thing about this road trip is revelation of the Zen-like nature apparently acquired by Willie, who basically says death is just another phase of life so why resist it? Stamp’s performance is the best thing in this film: he’s hilarious as an informer giving testimony, brutal in the flashbacks to his earlier days, and projects nothing but serenity in the present day (he even recites part of a Donne poem).
Road trips are usually about personal growth (by the characters) but I’m not sure there’s much of that in The Hit. Instead, character is revealed (to us, the audience) rather than developed as each of the main players shows who they are through their actions. Frears demonstrates good mastery of gangster tropes, sometimes to fulfill expectations and sometimes to satirize them, and you’ll probably get more out of this movie if you are familiar with those tropes (although you can certainly enjoy it without that knowledge as well).
Road trip movies often have distinctive soundtrack that does some of the heavy lifting regarding mood and narration, and such is the case with The Hit. Eric Clapton and Roger Waters wrote and performed the title track and music by flamenco guitarist Paco de Luca is regularly heard on the soundtrack, which also includes more conventional orchestral scoring.
I might not have considered The Hit interesting enough to review had the director been someone less eminent than Stephen Frears, and I suspect this film is in the Criterion Collection due to the later successes of the director more than its own merits. Not that I’m complaining: The Hit is enjoyable enough for its own sake while also signaling the presence of a talented young director (spoiler alert: Frears fulfilled that promise). The Hit probably got some extra points for being the cinematic debut of Tim Roth and the first movie screenplay by Peter Prince, previously known as a television writer. Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 469
Technical details: 98 min.; color; screen ratio 1.78:1 ; English.
Edition reviewed: DVD
Extras: audio commentary featuring Stephen Frears, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Peter Prince, and Mick Audsley; 1988 interview with Terence Stamp on the TV program Parkinson One-to-One; the film’s trailer; booklet with essay by film critic Graham Fuller.
Fun Fact: Several of the most striking filming locations are located within the properties of the Monasterio de Piedra, formerly a monastery founded in 1134 by three Cistercian monks and today classified by the Spanish government as a Property of Cultural Interest.
Parting Thought: There’s a cycling hitman in this film. Are there any others in cinematic history?
