HitmanNot quite the Bourne franchise  November 20,
2007 1:42:47 PM
VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Hitman.
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Timothy Olyphant, long a garnish in films like Go and Live Free or Die Hard, takes centerstage in this video-game-to-big-screen-actioneer helmed by French stylist Xavier Gens. He plays Agent 47, a genetically enhanced assassin taking orders from a nebulous network known as “the organization.” The first chapter, in what looks to be a series, has 47 caught in a set-up when he’s given orders to take out the Russian president. The hit goes sideways, and several factions want him dead, yet even though he’s a WASP with a clean-shaven dome and a barcode tattoo’d on the back of his neck, they can’t find him till he finds them. The bigger plot, which involves a dogged Interpol cop (Dougray Scott) and a sassy Russian sex slave (Olga Kurylenko), is awkwardly paced and muddled. Gens and screenwriter Skip Woods obviously yearn for something special like the Bourne franchise, but what they’ve coughed up is smaller-scale and more forgettable, along the lines of xXx. 100 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Chestnut Hill + Suburbs
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