Destructor

Hired to Kill (1990)

** (out of 4)

A government man (George Kennedy) hires mercenary Frank Ryan (Brian Thompson) to sneak into a South American location and take out a ruthless leader (Oliver Reed) who is holding an important man (Jose Ferrer) hostage. Frank goes undercover as a gay photographer and his "models" are actually trained agents.

HIRED TO KILL comes from director Nico Mastorakis who is best remembered for his notorious film ISLAND OF DEATH. This action picture certainly isn't in the same league but if you enjoy these low-rent action movies then you should get some kicks out of this one. Obviously there's nothing ground-breaking here but there are enough campy moments to keep you entertained. Plus, viewing this film twenty-five plus years after it was made, you can't help but smile thinking back on these types of movies that were made with such famous cast members.

The entire plot to this thing is pretty stupid but in many ways you have to think parts of the screenplay are a spoof on the genre. A gay photographer? The film manages to be at its most fun during the finale when various explosion and gun fights are happening. The stunts are all well done and the explosions are great, although sadly a stuntman did lose his life. The biggest problem with the film is that there's just not too much that happens for the first hour. There are way too many dialogue scenes and not enough action.

With that said, the cast is great or at least greatly entertaining. Thompson certainly wasn't a great actor but I thought he fit this role just perfectly. Reed, I'm sure drunk, is fun to watch as is both Kennedy and Ferrer in their small roles. The woman all look good and play up the sexuality, which is never a bad thing.

When I checked for the first time the IMDB page for HIRED TO KILL I was torn between curiosity and repulsion. Curiosity because it has lots of good looking women, lots of exotic locations and also George Kennedy and Josè Ferrer in the cast. Repulsion because it has a low score and the lead is played by Brian Thompson (who at that time looked like the poor man's version of Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude Van Damme). However I ended up enjoying it very much and I couldn't believe the bad reputation this movie had for years.

The movie is about mercenary Frank Ryan (Thompson) who is summoned by Agent Thomas (Kennedy) to go to Cyprus and free a revolutionary leader (Ferrer) held hostage by President Bartos (Oliver Reed). At the beginning Frank is reluctant, but in the end he accepts and he has its own plan: he poses as a fashion photographer and lets some women mercenaries pose as his models and after some photoshoots they go to the mission. How they will make it? See the movie.

This movie is nothing special. It has lots of action and some cool sequences here and there. I think that people who lived in the 1990s and who even saw it back then would have lots of nostalgia since there are also some songs of that period.

However, don't expect a masterpiece of the action genre like DIE HARD or POINT BREAK. Just think about it like one of the many B-movies of the genre that were made in a period when they usually went also straight to video that can be enjoyed even by non-fans of the genre.

This movie gives the impression that the worst thing anyone ever asked Brian Thompson to do was to try to act. Whether one can pin the credit on screenwriter Fred Perry or, more likely, director Nico Mastorakis, the notion also comes across that the rest of the cast were shoved into small corners where the same holds true for their performances. 'Heavy-handed' is one word we could use to describe the writing and direction; "indelicate" is another. The script includes tawdry and wholly unnecessary sexism, homophobia, and racism, and even the way female characters are written sometimes feels stereotypical and problematic. Meanwhile, even in instances where a slight measure of cleverness is demanded, the movie leaps out of bounds to take a different tack that's simply dubious (watch the scene in which Thompson and George Kennedy's characters speak in code). 'Hired to kill' at least stops short of being fully exploitative, though the small bits of gratuitous nudity are tired, and it otherwise treads a thin line. This isn't altogether terrible, but at its worst, there are times when it seems like it's trying to be.

True, the feature doesn't particularly pretend to be anything it's not, and I think anyone who stumbles upon it will know pretty well what they're in for. If you want an action-adventure romp and don't mind if it's second- or third-tier, this is the movie for you. On the other hand: 'Hired to kill' could have been a piece of purposefully overwrought, deadpan, tongue-in-cheek majesty - some lines and small inclusions are almost brilliant. Instead, even as it's distinctly overcooked at points, it feels like the picture is a little too self-serious for its own good. It's like the film didn't entirely know what it wanted to be, the tone it wanted to strike.

Still, credit where it's due: recognizing the level this title is operating on, it's modestly enjoyable. I love the filming locations, and the production design is fairly solid. The costume design and hair and makeup work are good. Action sequences aren't half bad; stunts are well done, and the effects that primarily include a lot of explosions. Putting aside guidance of the cast, Mastorakis' direction is competent. I question some of the sound effects - did you know bullets make a similar "plop" noise as paintball projectiles when they impact the human body? - but overall the contributions of those behind the scenes are pretty great, and 'Hired to kill' is technically sound.

What it comes down to, I suppose, is that I just wish a tad more mindful care were put into the writing and direction. Find your voice, and dispense with boorish indulgences, and I could even overlook a plot that is satisfactory but less than remarkable. These are the biggest weaknesses of the feature; improve on them and there's still no mistaking that this is hardly a major studio blockbuster, but it would have come off better. All the same, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes. There's no reason 'Hired to kill' is going to be remembered in the annals of cinema history, and you definitely don't need to go out of your way for it. But for an action flick of this nature it's passably entertaining, so provided that you're not expecting more, then just relax and have fun.

You couldn't make it up. Except they did: it took two guys to write the story of Frank Ryan, a tough mercenary (played by the inimitable Brian Thompson) who's hired to rescue a foreign rebel leader, and does so by teaming up with a bevy of hot female agents and posing as a gay fashion photographer on a location shoot. Thompson even gets to kiss Oliver Reed and then shoot all his bodyguards.

Every line is a classic. Random quote: "Murder, blood, and paranoia are going to make fine company where you're going." The direction is equal to the words. Nico Mastorakis (aided by Peter Rader) is a trash auteur of Albert Pyun proportions and aside from some okay Steadicam shots the movie is as flat as painted brickwork.

Reed plays the bad guy, Bartos, with an outrageous Johnny Foreigner accent and that walrus moustache of his. He's keeping the rebel leader captive and somehow can't see through the good guys' ruse. Too busy molesting his female staff, perhaps. Meanwhile, Frank's boss is played by George Kennedy, who you'll remember foaming at the mouth in The Naked Gun.

The editing is in a league of its own awfulness. There's a scene early on when Frank is creeping into Bartos's office, and we keep cutting back to the party downstairs for half a second at a time. It's not tense, it's just jarring. And in the final shootout it's virtually impossible to tell who's shooting who.

All of this should add up to a dismal movie, but there's too much fun and conviction and energy for it to be wholly dismissed. Kind of like Plan 9 in that regard. And there's a legitimately great scene where Frank is reporting back to the boss on a bugged line, so he's having to convey his progress via fashion metaphors - "Cosmo are 'dying' to meet!" Unfortunately there's not enough action, and precious little peril, to achieve the Commando gold standard of 80s action movie rewatchability. (Well, it just snuck into 1990.) What there's plenty of is camp, including numerous big-haired fashion shoot/military training montages and more than one raucous female prison. Plus henchmen so stupid they make video game A.I. of the time look smart. Oh yes, and the worst sex scene in film history, complete with actual pan pipes.

Put this one on your 'So Bad It's Good' shelf. It's objectively terrible but somehow irresistible.

I love this director. First, he gave us Island of Death, an utterly outrageous and hilarious piece of video nasty trash. Then, after thinking that was the only film he'd ever made, I found myself watching Nightmare at Noon, a Crazies style film with plenty of action and hoots. Now, I've sat through Hired to Kill, and although it's not as good as those two films, it still has plenty of daftness to keep my attention.

Brian Thompson is one of those secret service types hired to infiltrate a despotic country and overthrow dictator Oliver Reed, but not just that, he's got to do it posing as a gay fashion designer with an entourage of special forces beauties posing as models. So it's kind of like the dirty dozen remade by Vogue magazine, including the obligatory training scene, and the obligatory fashion model shoot. No wonder Oliver Reed looks perplexed (and a little bit toasted in a couple of scenes).

This is all pretty fun stuff, but there's a lack of action for the first hour or so. Still, there's the standout scene where Oliver Reed checks whether or not Thompson is actually gay or not which had me in stitches. I'm not even sure Reed was expecting to be kissed by Thompson because his surprise seems pretty genuine. Great stuff.