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Among the few Kaurismaki films I have seen so far, this is the one I think the most accessible and I strongly recommend it. My impression of it is completely vivid as I have just watched it minutes ago from the box I was offered a year ago for my 30's: a great present for movie maniacs. Kaurismaki does not film Helsinki this time, but another capital:London, with the same kind of views, the same urban landscapes, the beauty and the strangeness, the same insisting and passionate obsession than Scorsese with his New York. You still can find the same taciturnity of characters (perfect Kenneth Colley as the killer: I was glad to recognize Admiral Piett from The Empire Strikes Back), the same type of slow narration, though this time, the story is far simpler to understand upon first visualization. It deals with life and its contradictions, the preciosity of it, changes of mind and regrets, how desire between two people can make you see things differently, make you want to live on ; love regardless of social discrimination, that is so beautiful and yet so ideal! Another great point in Kaurismaki's films consists in the appropriate inclusion of a more or less famous rock music: perfect Joe Strummer, RIP. A great moment of poetry in cinema and a perfect film fit for beginners in Kaurismaki.

The premise of this film is funny and odd: an employee of a British company loses his job, and because there is nothing to life for, he decides to end it right there. But all the attempts on his own life fail. Still determined, he decides to hire a contract killer - and have himself murdered.

While waiting for the executioner in his apartment, he grows bored and decides to visit a bar across the street. There he indulges himself, for the first time, in hard liquor and cigarettes. As if this wouldn't be upsetting enough to his short remaining life span, he meets a flower girl with blood-red lips. Resolutely, he demands that she sits next to him, and inevitably falls in love. All over sudden, life isn't so despicable anymore - what to do? The contract killer is still on his heels...

Kaurismäki takes this story as an occasion to revive his cinematic universe: people standing at a bar and slowly lifting a glass of beer, others sitting in front of worn-out wallpapers while smoking a cigarette. The camera lingers as if those quiet moments were a subtle study of humans on the fringes of society. They are connected through the central theme of the film, but the main focus lies on Henri Boulanger, the former employee. Stoically and with a deadpan face, he undergoes the metamorphosis of his existence, subtly expressing his newfound hunger for life. Standing in a bar and listening to an unknown guitarist (Joe Strummer), he lifts his drink and takes a long gulp. From all we know, this is the equivalent of a spontaneous expression of joy in Finland. You are required to observe and listen quite carefully, but if you do, this very refrained way of celebrating the small pleasures of everyday life is not less powerful, especially against the background of Henri's rather meaningless existence. Kaursimäki doesn't need any loud effects or tearful scenes to convince us, he doesn't even need dialogue, of which there is very little in the film. He tells the story purely through the images and the strong, yet sparing expressions of his protagonists. The lighting of the scenes is somber and full of strong contrasts, giving the film it's own unique visual mark. I Hired a Contract Killer is like a slow burning fire that still provides warmth long after the big fireworks are spent.

I watched a documentary about Aki Kaurimaki (one of my favourite directors) in which he stated that he was sick and tired of pages and pages of dialogue he had written ending up on the cutting room floor. So he keeps the dialogue to a minimum. This film is a perfect example of this philosophy. This is Kaurismaki's trademark. Anyone who has seen "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" or "Arial" will recognise his sparing use of dialogue rather than having characters speak just for the sake of speaking. It is no wonder that his most recent film "Juha" was a silent film.

This is a very dark and very realistic film about loneliness and depression. All the main characters in the film are lonely people, with very little to live for. Anyone who liked Tom Di Cillo's "Johnny Suede" will find that this is a very film to "I hired a Contract Killer". Personally, I loved this film and would highly recommend it to anyone with an appreciation for fine art house cinema.

The settings are suitably grim and grimy. Most of the cast are oddly antisocial enough to fit neatly into the Kaurismaki vision of sixties' London bleakness. Jean-Pierre Leaud is morbidly deadpan in a truly Finnish way. Kenneth Colley is a wistful hit-man par excellence. The stifling dullness of the Orwellian ministry and the heartstopping nature of abrupt redundancy are beautifully drawn. The only thing that drags this movie down from Kaurismaki's usual lofty heights of cruel farce is the awful wooden performance by Margi Clarke as the "love" interest.

I have no idea why she was chosen ahead of the other 3 billion women on the planet to play the role, but she stinks up the place something rotten. She is so grimly unconvincing that I was grinding my teeth within ten minutes of her introduction. What should have been a brilliant dark comedy was turned into a dire soap episode by an artless performance of hitherto unimaginable ineptitude. It would appear that sublime irony is not her strongpoint. Nor is holding onto a single convincing accent for the duration. From Liverpool to Roedean in an hour. Hello nosebleed.

I've seen her play her usual gobby scouser part in innumerable "gritty" TV dramas, and found her bearable at worst. But here, she kills the atmosphere stone dead with her awful timing and dismal delivery. If only her performance was a joke of the "so bad it's good variety", but it isn't. It's just lame. I'm assuming that Aki cast her on the strength of Letter to Brezhnev or his brother's Helsinki-Napoli, but rarely has anyone been so wretchedly miscast in any of his movies. Even Joe Strummer comes out smelling of roses(and beer and cigs).

A real shame, because the mood of the movie is fantastic. The props and locations are homages to a London long since redeveloped. The giant Corona bottle in the pub is a particularly neat touch. As is the fact that everyone's smoking Players and Capstans. Worth a remake with a decent actress who has some understanding of irony and understatement.

The problem of Henri Boulanger is similar to that of Odysseus who told his friends to tighten him up at a pole of his ship before they drive through Scylla and Charybdis, and, to never obey him if he asks them to loose the ties, because otherwise he will be lost for either of the two monsters. In the case of Henry Boulanger it is so that this sober, never-drinking, never womanizing Kafkaesque office-worker suddenly looses his job, when the company wants to shrink. Boulanger, who never had tasted the sweet delirium of alcohol and the seductive odor of cigarettes, does not know a catalytic spirit of auxiliary constructions that would help him over the shock of having lost his job. So, he does what nobody else would do in his situation: he hires a contract killer. However, shortly after having paid the sum to kill himself, he enters a bar where they do not sell tea, so, for the first time, under the horizon of his life coming to a soon end, he drinks whiskey after whiskey, learns how good this is for him and smokes cigarette after cigarette, greedily trying to catch up what he had missed his whole life. There, in the bar, he meets Margaret, his first and therefore biggest love of his life. Clearly, having tasted the real fruits of life, he does not want to die anymore. But how can he make his killers clear that he want to withdraw from his contract? While Odysseus stays cuffed on his pole, Boulanger errs lost like Odysseus through London.

"I Hired a Contract Killer" unites on the same crossroad two helpless and persistent souls of the world cinema, working with a plot that suits them almost perfectly: director/writer Aki Kaurismaki and actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. I include the latter not much because of his real persona but mostly due to his most commonly associated character, the troubled Antoine Doinel, which in a way could be a figure of a Kaurismaki film and the director takes some advantage of that to make Léaud be part of his strange yet dark humored vignettes involving helpless characters dealing with meaningless lives until they find exquisite solutions for their problems.

The eternal Doinel, usually confident and striving for a certain goal (as evidenced in his later adventures post "The 400 Blows"), gives space to Henri Boulanger, a French subordinate working on a bureaucratic position at a British company, utterly lost and alone, until the day he gets fired from there, receiving as a gift a broken gold watch. With the money he still has, he decides to hire a hit-man to kill him since he's too yellow to kill himself. Why bother sticking around now that he really hit rock bottom, with no job, no people who care for him and being just another foreigner living in a cold and distant place.

But the man who brought us "Ariel" and "Shadows in Paradise" has to give Henri a turn-around that can save his life and also complicates things even more. He falls for a flower girl (Margi Clarke) who corresponds such love, they move in together, despite the fact he has nothing to offer to her but the hired killer (Kenneth Corley) is still tracking him down and he is destined to fulfill his contract and kill Henri. Typical of Kaurismaki, who always finds humor in desolated characters and awkward situations. Everything is strangely life affirming without getting near the corny clichés of Hollywood.

The union between Kaurismaki and Léaud is the main ingredient to enjoy such story, not as dark as it sounds but eventually nightmarish as Henri's problems becomes more and more unnerving (hilarious to some, but we all know that Aki's films are only amusing to very few who can actually laugh out loud - though that's not the director's intentions, he prefers the contained laughters). It's interesting to see Léaud becoming the anti-Doinel, here someone who is far removed from any chance of accomplishing anything, always escaping and giving up easily. But fate helps them both, in unexpected and intriguing ways. And we laugh at their confusion while facing the obstacles life throws at them.

Compared with other Kaurismaki films I've seen and Doinel's five films, "I Hired a Contract Killer" is miles away of being equally great as the fore-mentioned examples. And for the first time I identified more with the drama than with the comedy since most of the elements given were too hollow and so narrow with the drama that I couldn't find them much funny - characteristic of the Finnish creator but more effective in his other films. Another downer was having to deal with Léaud's poor English, practically impossible to understand. Why not make Henri meeting with a French girl, so there could be a real sense of connection between both (and captions so we can read instead of hearing forced accents)? Aside that, there's room for some fine suspense and a great musical cameo by Joe Strummer.

What's to be learned? With Doinel films I feel hope, courage and the sense that things can get better, even with some losses on the way. Now, with Henri's story, I know things can get worse but we can always push harder for one more day and see what happens next. A very needed film in darker times, because we all need to laugh at the absurd. 7/10

Finnish movies are often blamed (at least by Finns themselves) for containing very weak emotions and total lack of good humor. In my opinion, this movie gives a great deal of both.

The main character is an immigrant who loses his job and while swimming in depression, he tries to kill himself (and fails on it, too).

The movie gets great after the point where our hero hires an contract killer to kill him. Since his life is already lost (and the killer is going to kill him anytime), he begins to sink more and more into misery just when... he falls in love.

Suddenly, life isn't so bad anymore - too bad that the killer is still shadowing him and just trying to finish the contract they've made.

I just simply LOVE this movie, it is so funny and yet so good parody about all Finnish customs and traditions.

"Henri" (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is so down in the dumps that he decides it's time to end it all. Not suicide, though - nope. He decides to pay a local gangster £1,000 to do the job in the style of an hit! OK, money's money thinks his would be assassin so the job is assigned to his veteran enforcer Kenneth Colley - but it turns out that he hasn't his problems to seek either. To make matters even more complex, "Henri" is sitting in the pub - awaiting what he hopes will be the inevitable - when he meets "Margaret" (Margi Clarke). She's trying to make a living selling flowers and after a brief chat, well might it be possible that something may come of this friendship that might cause him to have a change of heart? Can he even have a change of heart? There's refund mechanism if the job fails - but if he cancels it? The threads of the three principal characters are woven engagingly together here as what initially looked like a rather daft fait accompli starts to develop into something altogether more characterfully light-hearted. Margi Clarke never failed to bring some edgy charisma to the screen and here she gels well with a Léaud whom I don't think I've ever seen doing a part in English before. His vulnerabilities, clumsiness even, with that tongue help to add a piquancy to his increasingly awakening persona. This also benefits from a brevity. At just shy of eighty minutes, it moves along efficiently telling the story in a focussed fashion that doesn't meander off to sink us in cheesy sentiment and there's plenty of will he/won't he to keep us guessing.

Over the course of seven movies, Aki Kaurismäki explored various sides of Finnish life and culture, from the inexorably tragic (The Match Factory Girl) to the upright hilarious (Leningrad Cowboys Go America). For his eighth feature film, he decided to try something new: he moved to England, ditched all of his regular actors, cast his all-time idol (New wave star Jean-Pierre Lèaud) in the lead and came up with one of the most brilliant and bizarre comedies of recent years. Well, not that recent, but it's genius, I can assure you.

The story takes place in London, and begins in what seems to be a very boring office (or at least the work is boring). Because of financial difficulties, some employees have to be made redundant. For some other reason, foreigners are the first victims. In other words, Henri Boulanger (Lèaud) is out of the game. Having lost the only thing he really cared for, he thinks there's nothing left for him in life and therefore tries to kill himself. Repeatedly. And with mediocre results (hanging? The rope is tron apart; putting the head in an oven? Gas strike all over the city).

This makes Henri even more miserable. So sad, in fact, that he eventually asks a professional assassin (Kenneth Colley) to do the job. While waiting for his final hour to come, he goes to a pub. And there the unexpected happens: he meets a woman (Margi Clarke), rediscovers the joy of living and changes his mind. Pity the killer won't...

In someone else's hands, this film could have been an absurd, grotesque, unrealistic parody of gangster movies. Kaurismäki, however, keeps it simple and believable, largely thanks to the controlled performances: Colley stays cold and unaffected throughout the whole film, even when he's coughing blood, while Léaud never abandons his everyman role, doing nothing more than occasionally raise an eyebrow when things take unpredicted turns.

The film is almost perfect, weren't it for one factor: Margi Clarke. With all the talented British actresses available, Kaurismäki had to pick an unknown with no charm and a dreadful accent. This slight casting mistake prevents I Hired a Contract Killer from being an undisputed masterwork, but like all the other movies on Kaurismäki's CV, it's still worth your attention.

With Aki Kaurismäki's movies there is always the question: What are they made for? What is the point? Ordinary people suffer ordinary fates and deal with them in ordinary ways. It's not interesting. Of course, Kaurismäki is consequent: His films are never longer than 70 minutes so one can still bring himself to watching them because it's not a waste of too much time.

„I Hired a Contract Killer` also presents, like the others, that melancholic mood. But apart from that, there is a fine idea behind the movie which – unfortunately – is poorly carried out: A man wants to kill himself but is afraid to and so hires a contract killer to do it for him. Well, a good idea, dark as it may be, is not enough. But after all, this movie inspired me to write a short story. That's at least one plus, from my personal point of view.

Great movie. Based on the story by Jules Verne Les Tribulations d'un chinois en Chine, Kaurismaki surprise us again with his strange humorous style. A story about feelings in an inexpressive way; don't mind how blue you can feel, there's always a place for love and hope. People and their contradictions; a man who don't want to live, contracts a killer who don't want to die. If you have seen any Kaurismaki's films, you should know that they are different; His way of filming and his stories are not "normal" in the commercial way; he seems to keep the distances with the characters, and that could be annoying for some people; but if you like it, you will love all his films. Kaurismaki is a genius, and he is funny too.

'I Hired A Contract Killer (1990)' is a dark comedy about a man who loses his job and decides he wants to die, but is unable to kill himself due to a lack of materials and a lack of self-described courage. So, he does the logical thing: he hires a contract killer. The problem is that he soon meets a flower-selling woman and promptly falls head-over-heels for her, snapping him out of his seemingly steely suicidal stupor in an instant. Not one to dwell on his initial haste in putting a hit on himself, the man instead must contend with an eager assassin while he tries to undo his mistake. The film is incredibly deadpan in its every element, with a dry sense of humour underlining most of its events and performances so subdued they're borderline stilted. In the case of the latter, I'm not quite sure if it's a choice or not when it comes to certain members of the cast, but Jean-Pierre Léard certainly seems to understand the assignment with his weary stares and stark social awkwardness. The feature is fully confident in its own style, even as it threatens to put a wall between itself and its audience. If you can get on its wavelength, it's a pretty good time. It's funny on occasion and also sometimes quietly profound ("the working class has no fatherland"). It isn't the most exciting or refined affair, though, and its meandering atmosphere does occasionally make you wish something more conventionally gripping was going on. Still, it has a distinct effect and is generally enjoyable throughout. It also takes a couple of turns which are fairly unexpected and conveys a sense of place really well. I quite like it.

Very early in his career, the Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki established an aesthetic for his films in colour that has held for decades now: the characters are blue-collar people struggling to get by, and whatever emotions they feel, their lines of hatred, love, hope, or disappointment are communicated in an utterly deadpan, monotone fashion. The scenery is usually drab industrial buildings and rusting dockyards. Kaurismäki's 1990 film I HIRED A CONTRACT KILLER moves that formula, developed in his native Helsinki, to London. This is not the posh London of the royal family, bankers or socialites. Kaurismäki managed to find completely dilapidated locations that I would have never imagined to exist in London of that time (though no doubt they've long since been gentrified beyond recognition at this point).

Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a timid Frenchman living in London with no apparent friends or surviving family, has worked for fifteen years for a state utility. When he is made redundant in a bit of Thatcher-era privatization, he feels he has nothing more to live for. He attempts suicide twice, both tries ending in morbidly humorous failure, and he lacks the courage to try any further. He decides to enter the East End criminal underworld and to hire a paid assassin to kill him. The mob boss takes Henri's money and tells him it will be done through a subcontractor. But when Henri meets the lovely Margaret (Margi Clarke) and starts coming out of his shell, he suddenly has second thoughts. Unable to call off the job, he and Margaret try to evade the hit-man (Kenneth Colley), already on Boulanger's trail.

Kaurismäki's films are, to a large extent, dark comedies, and there are some laughs here. I also appreciated the element of homage to Kaurismäki's forebears and peers here. Colley's sad hit-man and the way the shots frame him was surely drawn from the crime capers that Jean-Pierre Melville shot in his last years. Kaurismäki's perennial love for drab scenery had been boosted by his newly established friendship with Jim Jarmusch, a director who presented America at this time as so many vacant lots and abandoned buildings.

Still, I wouldn't consider this among Kaurismäki's best work. One of the things that makes Kaurismäki's main, Finnish-language output so hilarious is that the characters speak in literary Finnish (nearly a different language than colloquial Finnish). When the dialogue is in English and with a mix of UK accents, the formula is not quite as effective. Jean-Pierre Léaud's English is almost incomprehensible -- the actor has been a titan of French film since the New Wave of Truffaut and Godard, but he's not proficient enough in English to do English-language cinema. Kaurismäki no doubt wanted intended the character to sound that way, but it feels off for this viewer. I'd recommend this film only to those who have enjoyed a series of Kaurismäki's stronger films.

Do you like classics? Do you have a thing for Hitchcock, or lets say, Jean Pierre Melville? Do you wanna see how does that translate into a more modern progressive movie? Well! here is what you do: You go straight to a club and you purchase 'I Hired a Contract Killer'! It sticks with you; the futility, the humor, and the suspense. This is a picture that no matter what, you gonna remember for ever. The futility is so rich, that itself becomes the core meaning to everything. And the situation gets so baffled that emptiness becomes a survival. The suspension is perfectly 'Hitchcokic'& the use of music is great. It is among the pictures that secures you; makes you sure that still cinema exists; A cinema that tells you a story, a breathtaking one - and damn, Kourismaki is a great story teller; a noble one. One of the few left from the true heritage of motion picture industry and art. Lay back, watch and enjoy. This is pure cinema. As you might have guessed, I fully recommend it!

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990), directed by Aki Kaurismäki, is a brilliantly understated film that blends dark humor with existential reflection. The story follows Henri, a man who, after losing his job, falls into a deep depression and contemplates suicide. However, unable to go through with it, he hires a contract killer to do the job for him. But when Henri begins to change his mind, the film delves into the absurdity of life and death, exploring themes of fate, loneliness, and the human condition with a delicate balance of humor and melancholy.

Kaurismäki's direction is typically minimalist, allowing the characters and the quiet moments to speak volumes. The film's pace is slow, but this is by design, as it gives space for the absurdity of Henri's situation to sink in. The deadpan humor is subtle yet effective, providing moments of levity amidst the dark premise. The existential questions raised by the film, such as the nature of life and the importance of connection, are explored with a sense of irony that never feels heavy-handed.

The performances are restrained, with the lead, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, perfectly capturing Henri's sense of bewilderment and resignation. His portrayal of a man who is too tired to end his life but too lost to find meaning in it is both poignant and oddly relatable. The supporting characters, particularly the contract killer, are equally well-drawn, adding to the film's absurd charm.

The cinematography is stark, using simple yet effective shots to emphasize the emotional distance and isolation felt by Henri. The muted colors and quiet settings create an atmosphere of both existential despair and understated comedy. The film's visual style complements its narrative, maintaining a sense of stillness and calm that contrasts sharply with the underlying turmoil.

I Hired a Contract Killer is a masterclass in using subtle humor to tackle serious themes. It's a film that challenges the viewer to find meaning in the mundane, and it does so with a refreshing lack of pretension.

Rating: 9/10. A darkly comedic and existential exploration of life's absurdities, brilliantly crafted with subtle humor and deep emotional resonance.

I have nothing against slow movies, Kaurism{ki's 'Take care of your scarf Tatjana', being an example of how void and silence (a Finnish trait) can be used to good effect. However, in this case, if the empty parts were extracted from this film, to contract it to about 15 minutes, then it still wouldn't be a good film. It smacks of being nothing more than just an amateurish student project. The acting is wooden, apart from the lead, who just endears himself to the viewer with his depressing delivery to make his role stick out just a little.

One for film students to watch and learn from, but not entertainment.

I only saw this movie once, over a decade ago. It was horrible. Noone laughed or even smiled in it, all the scenery was bleak, the story was depressing, and it almost made the audience feel suicidal as well (like the protagonist).

But, with each passing year, I like this movie more. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it again. It actually is a great comedy, but it took me years to understand that.

Should you see it? Definitely. I still remember this obscure movie after over 10 years and although I hated it at first. It inspired me enough to write this comment here. About how many movies can you say that?

The premise is so stupid -- guy is such a failure that he can't even kill himself, so he hires a contract killer to do it for him.

Then he falls in love and changes his mind.

Really, I can't emphasise enough how bad this movie is. It's not "so bad it's good", it's so bad it's BAD. But I still remember it after all these years so it must have struck some sort of chord.

P.S. Has Warren Beatty seen this movie? Because the same plot starts off Bulworth.