Hit Me

This movie kind of took me by surprise. I thought it was going to be another semi boring heist flick, but it wasn't. I think it had some genuinely interesting points to make about one's own desperation and greed.

The movie tells the story of a lonely and frustrated bellhop (koteas)who stumbles into a plan to rob a group of wealthy card sharks who are going to take part in an illegal poker game. A slew of mistakes and fumbles occur which leads to an unfortunate (in my opnion) ending.

Koteas gives a very edgy performance and makes the movie all by himself. The rest of the cast also does their part too, in particular the actor who plays koteas's childlike brother, quite a convincing portrayal.

I give "Hit Me" 9 out of 10

Hit Me, Steven Shainberg's (Secretary) directorial debut has a lot going for it including a great cast and a truly striking set to utilize. Unfortunately, the story is utterly ridiculous. The first half hour is a long, drawn out affair I guess to establish Elias Koteas' character, who seems to be nothing more than a series of ticks. We find out he has a brother who is mentally retarded, and the state wants to take away, but Elias will not let them happen. On the verge of losing his job at a two star hotel, he becomes involved in an incident (which I won't reveal here) that is so muddled, so badly played out and so unbelievable that I found it hard to believe that the rest of the motivations of the characters in this movie, rested on it. If the source material (a Jim Thompson novel) was unclear,

Shainberg certainly didn't make it any clearer which leads to the main character entering into a heist for truly inane reasons. It's hard to get excited about a heist when the reasoning behind it is virtually nonexistent. Yes, there are heists for the sake of heists - and often that works fine - but this film spends a lot of time and energy trying to establish some reason for this to take place, but fails to convince.

Good film noir, relies on amoral men, sexual women and desperate desires. Hit Me which claims to be a film noir is simply desperate - for a good story and a stronger execution.

This is an utterly putrid film of Jim Thompson's terrific novel, "A Swell-Looking Babe." In adapting the book for the screen, writer Denis Johnson has stripped the novel of all its dark humor and subtext and given us a tepid and dull film.

Gone are the father and the whole McCarthyism subplot, which is crucial to what the protagonist does. And Thompson's denouement was dripping with irony.

Thompson's protagonist was a multi-layered character who had good reasons for what he did. Here, Elias Koteas is just a boring hotel employee. No offense to the actress who plays the femme fatale, but the role needs someone with a lot more substance than she brings to it.

William H. Macy might be highlighted on the DVD box, but he has just one scene. That's it. Come to think of it, he might have been better in the lead role.

Do yourself a favor. Instead of renting this piece of crap, read the novel. Your time and money would be better spent.

Based on Jim Thompson's 'A Swell Looking Babe', 'Hit Me' is about a bellhop - Sonny - getting involved in a scheme to steal $500,000 from high-end, illegal poker players. The swell looking babe is a French girl, Monique, and Sonny thinks his share of the money will allow him to start a new life with her. That isn't going to come easily. Monique is unreliable, hooked up with the criminals, and has suicidal tendencies. The path of love never does run smooth, does it? As in the book, Sonny is an interesting character, fuelled by three elements - his love of Monique, his hatred of his job, and his refusal to accept help to care for his disabled brother, Leroy. Sonny is over his head in it all, and once the heist goes pear-shaped, he's frantically scraping around to try a make it clear.

Elias Kotsas does a decent job playing Sonny. He looks a lot like Robert De Niro and effectively gets across one of De Niro's big skills - playing desperate psychosis. At times this can veer into comedy, and it's unclear whether this is always intentional. Kotsas acts emotions very physically - mock-humping the air before he goes into Monique's room and pepping himself up by jumping through four different positions before meeting the main poker player.

As in Thompson's novels, 'Hit Me' presents a world where no character can be trusted. Even the "good guy" - Sonny - is as shady and money grabbing as the rest, at one stage happily considering becoming a cocaine dealer. It's film noir taken to its limits... not in terms of visual style but in terms of characterisation.

Stacked up against the beautiful economy of Mamet's 'Heist' or Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Hit Me' does drag a little and doesn't have quite enough twists and turns to merit lasting over two hours. And, whilst shot cleanly and effectively, it lacks cinematic impact. However, there's a nice undercurrent of philosophising over the nature of survival and, whether you're a Thompson fan or not, you could do worse than checking out this interesting little movie.

Hit me wastes the film rights to Jim Thompson's excellent novel A SWELL-LOOKING BABE. The story is discarded in favor of a pointless exercise in Scenery-chewing by the usually superb Elias Koteas. We witness pointless double-crosses and mindless plot twists while perverting the novel."Hit Me" is a show of mediocre style instead of things that most people like in movies: good characters, exciting plot, witty dialogue, things like that.

Jim Thompson fans, the only people who would want to see this movie anyways, should be prepared for disappointment.