A wealthy woman employs a writer and his producer partner to turn her daughter into the next Taylor Swift in this thriller from debut writer-director Luke Pennington. But as the hit men’s true intentions become apparent, events take a dark and drug-fuelled turn for the worst.
The film feels exactly like the kind of thing you’d expect from someone fresh out of film school – a tired jumble of Tarantino shtick and Coens’ caper. And like Tarantino, Pennington also seems partial to a gurning turn in front of the camera, playing coked-up and prattling pop producer Marty Vie.
Warning signs start early as the characters are introduced with biographies that have literally been scribbled down on post-it notes and thrown at the wall. As we’re then thrust into the first meeting between the parties, it’s never explained why the woman and her daughter – who already have a fair amount of money and a song that’s “the sixth most downloaded in the world right now” – would need to employ the services of these two shambolic shysters conducting their business out of a grotty ground floor flat.
From there, we’re treated to a handful of excruciating scenes stretched out to a runtime just long enough for it to count as a feature film. Like a late-night drunk-driver, they lurch nauseatingly between sweary bouts of shouting and reams of pretentious sixth-form pseudo-philosophising over mass media and consumer culture.
Yet there are elements of the film that aren’t entirely without merit; the ironically-monikered Happy Anderson makes the best of his writer character Charlie Wolczek – basically a depressed version of The Dude – while the opening long take provides a far more engaging and enticing introduction than anything in the script. Unfortunately, rare moments of competent cinematography are blighted by a truly appalling sound mix.
Like the vacuous pop that its titular characters are peddling, Hit Men is just another witless and pointless imitation of some of the most imitated of filmmakers.
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