The Big Hit (1998) 1/2 * A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Dumb dud of an HK-clone action movie that isn't satirical enough to be funny. Walberg's fine; the rest is not.
The more I think about this movie, the more I hate it. THE BIG HIT is a loud, obnoxious, and doltish-supposed-to-be-funny attempt at a Hollywood Hong Kong shootsploitation movie that falls smack on its face on nearly every count.
Kirk Wong is the latest director (after Tsui Hark) to be dragged kicking and screaming into Hollywood. His first U.S. film, THE BIG HIT, plays like a cheap clone: it looks and smells like it was made by people who had *seen* a couple of HK action movies, but had no idea how to be *inspired* by one.
Mark Walberg is a hitman who works with his cohorts (Bokeem Woodbine and Lou Diamond Philips, both wasted) in the employ of a boss figure (played nicely by Avery Brooks, but with a little too much saliva around the corners of the mouth). They get into improbably complicated shootouts that, while exciting, have no more real intrinsic interest than a video game. Targets pop up, get wasted, get replaced. Reload. The movie also cheats pretty blatantly: one moment involving Wahlberg appearing as if by magic in an elevator had everyone groaning.
Wahlberg is strapped, no thanks to one girlfriend who's a gold-digger and another who's determined to marry him no matter what anyone else says, including her parents. He goes along with a kidnapping that's supposed to rake them in a ton of money. Only trouble is, the father of the girl they kidnapped is dead broke (like we couldn't see that coming) and is also the god-daughter of their own boss.
All of this is nothing but fodder, however. The movie is a dreary mess. Bokeem Woodbine's character is distinguished from the rest of the crew by his foul mouth and his compulsive masturbation. The father of the kidnappee threw all his money into a movie called "Taste the Golden Spray". One of the plot elements is an overdue copy of KING KONG LIVES. I am not leaving out very much here, nor do I think I want to.
Hong Kong movies are very adept at mixing and matching genres and tones without seeming like a compromise. I think part of that is because, at least when we deal with a movie of this caliber, there's never a moment when we know we're supposed to take it seriously. THE BIG HIT keeps attempting to enlist our emotions in lots of stupid little ways, and then throws in more obnoxious sight gags. Nobody made a decision early on about what kind of movie they really were making. If it was a parody, then we didn't need the shapeless and distasteful material about the future in-laws (a pair of snotty Jewish-parent stereotypes). If it was serious, then they should have wiped the slate clean and started from scratch.
THE BIG HIT is not even enjoyably ridiculous. It's the kind of movie you feel bad for renting with your beer, because you could have bought that much beer for the cost of the rental and had a better time. I suspect the only reason I didn't downgrade this film's rating even further was because I'd be wasting too much venom on it.
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