aaronadoty

The acting is overwrought and the script manages to be both paper thin and confusingly jumbled at the same time, but this low-budget shocker makes effective use of its abandoned hospital setting. When combined with shadow-filled lighting, set design that punches up the creepy location and some unsettling sound design, the film manages to create a brooding, malevolent atmosphere, punctuated by jump scares that succeeded in giving me full-body tingles. The odd moments of humour are slightly jarring and there is a (largely unsuccessful) attempt to create a riddle of the past to be solved (in the vein of Celine and Julie Go Boating or The Haunting of Hill House). Hospital is flawed and a bit messy, but still quite an enjoyable little supernatural chiller.

Red Eye is like a rocket launch - there is no margin for error, and every part of the machine needs to have a job and do it perfectly.

The opening scenes play like a loving homage to every airport disaster movie of the 70s, but once the cabin doors have closed, the film flicks a switch and becomes a taut thriller. While they could be part of another movie altogether, every single one of those opening scenes has a pay-off later in the movie.

The film is mostly a two-hander, so it is fortunate that the two leads deliver compelling performances, while also being mesmerisingly attractive to watch. Ultimately, however, the film's success is down to being a cinematic tutorial on structure. Red Eye is a clockwork masterpiece by a skilled horologist.

While the conceit of the dark rom-com sparked interest and the reviews were very positive, the actual experience of watching Hit Man began to drag about half-way through its nearly 2 hour runtime. My attention drifted and I began to browse reviews of the movie on my phone, trying to work out how I had been sold such a pup. The two leads are compelling attractive, but the quick-fire scenes used to build their on-screen romance felt tired and clichéd after the enjoyable run of scenes that preceded it, where we see Gary developing his hitman personas to suit his varied client base (with no shortage of intertextual references to other films with memorable killers).

The movie picks up in the second half, culminating in one remorseless scene that brings together its themes and philosophy. It was enough to make up for the otherwise uncomfortable sense that the film was a slightly overlong apology for state-sanctioned murder and personal vigilante justice, disguised as a romantic comedy.

I was left with the feeling that Hit Man could have been a much tighter, more engaging film if it was only about 25 minutes shorter.