Hired to Kill

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.

If you watch as many Direct-to-Video Low-Budget action movies as I do, then you know that a majority of them are just alright. Some end up being forgettable, some end up being just plain terrible, and then some will just blindside you out of nowhere and end up being amazing. This is one of those films.

Brian Thompson (Cobra) plays Frank Ryan, a mercenary who's hired to sneak into South America and rescue an imprisoned rebel leader. To do this, he must go undercover as a gay fashion designer, and will have to hire and train 7 women to be both models and assassins to be able to pull this job off.

You'll know in the first 5 minutes whether this film is your cup of tea or not, because right off the bat, it's blatantly absurd in a very cheesy late 80's/early 90's kind of way - the kind of action film I just so happen to be obsessed with. None of it is on purpose either, it's all done straight in a legitimate way, which makes it all the more amazing and hilarious. If you're into this kind of thing, then Hired to Kill delivers on every level. It's a film that, while a bit goofy, fires on all cylinders to deliver exactly the kind of action film experience that I just love to death; cheese, action, explosions, nudity, one-liners, awesome and unintentionally hilarious.

Brian Thompson just rules so hard in this. What can I say? Thompson is a bad-ass in this. He really is. From his very first second of screen time, which is literally the very first image of the film, he exudes a cool, tough guy, machismo that is a bit ridiculous, yet so unintentionally silly and hilarious. How cool is he? Well, when his alarm clock goes off, instead of just pressing a button to turn it off, he instead pulls out a gun from under his pillow and shoots it, without ever opening his eyes. That kind of cool. His "I don't give a ****" attitude is what really sells it though. First and foremost, it's the cheesy dialogue, but it's also in his delivery. He seems to just really hate women in general, and because of this, his character is fascinatingly entertaining in an overly macho way, like he's overcompensating for something. It's highly amusing, and Brian Thompson sells it like nobody else does. It's really a shame he never got the chance to do more films like this as an action star. If this film proves anything, it's that Thompson should have been given more opportunities like this other than typically playing a villain.

I'd never heard of Greek writer/director Nico Mastorakis before this. It seems though that he was a pretty busy guy, throwing out a good 2-3 films per year during the 80's and 90's. I think what surprised me a bit was that he didn't just stick to action. Comedy seemed to be a genre he constantly came back to, as well as horror and thrillers. Yet, if this film is any indication, action seemed to be his calling. As I look into them all though, it seems the "quality" of his work varied greatly from film to film, as is usually the case with these type of filmmakers. Jim Wynorski, Richard Pepin and Joseph Merhi are other examples of genre directors I love for certain films, but tend to offer work that is sub-par, or falls flat for the most part. It would seem Mastorakis easily falls under the same category; a director who has a few solid standouts, but otherwise who's large output of films are pretty forgettable. It's a bit disappointing too, because just based on his work in this film, he does a pretty great job in terms of his camera setups, action sequences and editing. Or, a decent enough job that benefits the material.

There's so much to love about this film. Not only does it deliver on the action, but just the premise alone, about training 7 women to become assassins, and heading into South America under the false pretense that they're famous fashion models, is just ridiculously awesome. There are moments that the film is just so absurd, that they apparently didn't stop and think how plausible any of it would be. For example, there's a scene where Ryan (Brian Thompson) is training the women in a camp ground, and using cardboard cutouts as targets that pop up. Some of them are of him, and some of them are of the notorious leader they'll be going up against to get to the other leader they're attempting to rescue. The bad guy is none other than Oliver Reed. Yes, that's right. And so when these cardboard cutouts of him appear it's quite hilarious. You think "how did they get this perfect image of him? And when and how the hell did they get these made?". It's just so random and unapologetic-ally silly, but that's what makes this film so great.

Hired to Kill has everything you could want in a film like this; nudity, tons of action, explosions, one-liners that rival the best of Schwarzenegger, an absurd but highly enjoyable premise, and a scene where Brian Thompson kisses Oliver Reed. It's a nonstop ride of nonsense, cheesy fun, action-packed and entertaining as hell. It's exactly the type of film you hope it will be.

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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.

I love these old action movies with bad actors and all the cliches, they're simply just so funny. If you liked showdown in little tokyo or any of Arnolds action movies, then you'll like this :) Too bad this one wasn't shown in cinemas and I had to rent the DVD. So if you have a good sounds system and a thing for old action movies, then GET THIS ONE!!!