Why so much hype?

The Worst Film Ever

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

i only heard about this film when i saw it on someones list of best films,thought it was really good willies a bastard from the beginning trying to play head games and turn them against each other but the girls more dangerous shes just as manipulative and sly was kind of hoping that the ending would be willie being taken to Paris and facing his former mates that he betrayed would have been nice if we could have found out more about his past crimes and find out how he was found in the first place a truly underrated British film it reminds me a bit of cohen and tate a old film from 1990 where two hit man snatch someone and have to take a road trip and survive the mind games ...........the hit is a really good film

John Hurt's strongest feature is his voice, full of shading and subtlety yet splendidly articulate with an attractive timbre. So why in HELL would he be cast as a professional killer with maybe twenty-five lines of dialog in the whole picture? What a waste!A very young Tim Roth with a blond dye job looks underfed and downright weird, though he does try for the eager apprentice thing and in places gets it right. The distinguished Spanish actor Fernando Rey has a tiny part, not appearing until the movie is three-quarters over.Ms. del Sol looks attractive though her character--unlike her bosom-- is hardly developed. Terrence Stamp looks better than ever but has little to do in the picture, which lurches from crime drama to travelogue (some nice shots of the countryside of northern Spain) to philosophical exposition, unable to decide what it wants to be. The script writer apparently didn't know how to end the story. By then he must have been told that the movie already was too long. The ending he chose seems tacked on, with heavy borrowing from the Ambrose Bierce short story "Parker Adderson, Philosopher". What's good apart from the beauty of the Basque country are the action sequences near the start and at the very beginning the English courtroom scene.

The Hit is a movie that is hard to forget, but if you do you'll be happy to remember it. It's the kind of movie that had I seen it in the 1980's, I would still think back fondly to a moment or two, to the strange sense of inner peace that Terence Stamp's character Willie Parker has on this 'road trip' to his death by the hands of gangsters, or the way that John Hurt's Braddock wears his sunglasses, or how the chipper Spanish music accentuates scenes with an unusual flavor. We may have seen movies where a criminal, who went 'rat' on his former criminal buddies, is discovered years later to finally meet his comeuppance, but it's hard to think of another quite like this, one that is directed with such an eye for photographic beauty in the Spanish villas and mountains and deserts, or with the dark comedy of the performances.It's ostensibly just about that, two criminals (Hurt and Tim Roth) taking a guy like Willie Parker back to meet his maker for what he did. But there's more to the tale: they stop off at another mate's flat in Madrid and they take his girl (Laura Del Sol), an innocent, as collateral when they get across the border, and from there it's about what Braddock will or won't do, what Roth's Myron as the young, energetic upstart who could possibly stop Braddock from his path of destruction, and how a weary detective (Fernando Rey, who has not a line of dialog) follows along the trail of violence and bloodshed. It's about this without ever having to push the dialog in explanation too much: only in the last third, when we hear Willie's reasons for being so... comfortable with his position as a kidnapped wanted man, that the screenplay stops to add words.It's fairly dramatic and contemplative on what it is to be a criminal, how to be as you are with a gun pointed at someone or committing violence or acting all like a bad-ass. There's this conflict we see especially between the three characters of Willie, Myron and Braddock, where one is just along for the ride, with some gallows humor so to speak ("I'll just get back in the car then?), one is just fine getting his thousand dollars for his first ever job, but will stop his superior if need be, and the other is quiet and calm, like a refugee from a Jim Jarmusch crime film (coincidentally to the Stranger from Limits of Control Hurt was also in that mystery movie), but is professional to a degree. Frears lets the actors open up the material as he opens up the scope and environments they inhabit: it's not about the standard plot, but about what the characters are about.I may have made The Hit to sound ponderous or pretentious, but it really isn't. It's a very entertaining and surprising ride we take, where conventions are eschewed for that feeling of anything-is-possible on the road. There's some laughs, there's some thrills, and an ending that is not predictable despite it following a formula going all the way back to 1940's film noir. It's an underrated gem from British crime lore that should be seen by anyone on the lookout for something different from the genre, or for something unexpected from the actors (Roth's being his screen debut).

A petty gangster rats out his accomplices and goes into protective custody with his new-found penchant for books and thought, until one day retribution arrives in the form of two assassins. The gangster, now a philosopher who claims he is ready for death as just another step in the progression of life, is taken for a long ride across Spain so that the crime boss he ratted out can witness vengeance inflicted.Talk about your minor masterpieces! This has long been one of my favorites ever since I stumbled across it on one of the premium cable movie channels many years ago.It's hard to put my finger on just what it is, exactly, that makes this movie great. One can hardly point to substantial character development, because the characters (with one exception) never really become true flesh and blood to us. The plot meanders, truth be told. The dialog is clever but rarely brilliant. So what is it? Certainly the locations and the music, the general ambiance, add a lot to the movie. The car, the clouds of dust, the brilliant Spanish sun, the arc of azure sky, the arid hills, the sultry guitar: these things alone can turn a marginal movie into a good one. Exterior shots predominate, and with good reason. The director knew how to combine simple, pure elements--strong, bold colors, bright sunlight, stark images, and exactly the right sounds--in ways that seem to speak of things larger than themselves.But I don't mean to make the rest of the movie sound marginal. The characters aren't terribly well fleshed-out, but they are interesting nevertheless. Hurt's character, the silent, wary predator, comes across as a bit stilted, but he makes it work with his craggy face, his angular body, his croaking voice, and especially his eternally weary eyes. (Few characters could have taken on this role without looking ridiculous.) Stamp is also stilted yet convincing as the amateur philosopher and erstwhile rogue at peace with himself and his fate. Roth, even more constricted in his role, also manages to put across a convincing if thoroughly unsavory persona. These actors don't have much to work with, and yet none of them ever slips into crudely cartoonish performances. They remain genuine, to the degree their characters allow.The real surprise is the girl, Laura del Sol. Her obvious physical charms, barely stuffed into a very small dress, lead the viewer (the pop-eyed male viewer, anyway) into writing her off as mere eye candy, until the confrontation between her and Hurt, and the cruel, angry glow in her eyes, brings it home that here perhaps is the highest talent in this cast. It is she alone who stands out, at the end of the movie, as someone we can recognize and identify with; someone who isn't a mere cypher. What a pity that she has done so little else in English-speaking movies.Whether you find the ending of this movie satisfying probably says something about your own personality, and how you view concepts like loyalty, crime, vengeance, and justice. I won't go into my own reactions. I'll only say that, when the movie is over, you'll find that, not only have you watched an absorbing movie, but you probably have things to think about.