Hitman's Hero

A dark Australian comedy about a boy who witnesses a murder by a professional hit-man and spends the rest of his life wanting to be just like him. Now an adult he carries out hits working for an older lady who gives him the jobs. His partner spends all his time trying to sabotage all the hits his friend executes. Giving him a gun that doesn't work or tipping off the marks about their future is what he does. It turns out he is having a blackmailing affair with the hit-man's wife and he wants the husband to get killed so he can have her all to himself. The wife doesn't want anything to do with him but knows that he'll tell her husband a dark secret that will destroy him. The plot thickens when the hit-man is caught by a female police officer just after a hit and she in turn blackmails him to have sex with her or she'll turn him in. A wonderful film that shows a man trying to do the best job he can and overcome obstacles. Not a violent film just a light hearted look at murder for hire.

A funny tongue in cheek romp about a try-hard hit-man who is trying to organise his first big hit. Not all that bad a movie. The DVD version actually has interviews with all the cast, and a full cinematographic analysis of the movie which you can listen to instead of the soundtrack. Now admittedly this is for die-hard fans of schlock noir, or for the mums and mates of the cast and crew, but some (like me) may find the gratuitous commentary interesting. Moder and Richardson started making Super 8 movies at High School - the style of SNAK was evident in these early movies (circa 1983), which actually pre-date Tarintino's Pulp Fiction by many years, although SNAK would be regarded as derivative. I recall seeing Pulp Fiction and thinking that Moder/Richardson had been pipped at the post. I enjoyed watching their riposte, and was glad to see that all those shirts that were stained with false blood over the years actually bore fruit.

This is a great pic from a very underrated director. It features an ageing hit-man who gets his jollies listening (thru a stethoscope) to the dying hearts of his victims; the film's villain, George, freebases his mother's ashes; and the film THE MASTURBATING GUNMAN, by the same director, is watched by the film's hero and his wife. Like some of Savage's earlier pics, this focuses on a character's internal struggle to be a good person while doing "bad" things. The shoot-out sequences are very well paced and executed and the performances are mostly above par. There is a strong (deviant) sexual current coursing through the narrative and black as pitch humor is employed in some scenes.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This is exactly what you'd expect if you gave some thick teenage boys the money to make their own film - lots of pointless violent scenes, childish sex scenes, shallow characters and the simplest story possible. Oh yes, and there's a highly original gun battle scene near the end where the hero is alone and kills about a dozen adversaries. The original bit is that all their bullets somehow miss him completely, but he manages to shoot them all dead. Inspired, eh?

Although this film is amateurish, occasionally out of sync and sometimes just awkward there remains a juvenile joy in this sort of excessive, over-the-top mania-film-making. Being a big fan of BloodLust - which was better than this film - I can't help but embrace this maddening but enjoyably chaotic slice of wannabe-cult-cinema. Its the story of a "nice" hitman with some moral backbone whose naivety threatens his undoing when he finds himself unable to complete his jobs and thus putting his family life under pressure. He is also the sex-slave of a dominatrix-like female cop who offers him the hope of a big break but refuses to loosen her grip on him. Its this films attempt to slide into the outer-mainstream with its - though warped - family focus that ultimately undoes the film. Instead of going right over the edge, SNAK halts itself from pushing the limits which a film like Bloodlust gladly embraced and smashed into deliriously. This is still fun, even if predictably referential to so many other films, and at least it has its original moments and its own oddly endearing personality.

I think this is Mark Savage's fifth film, but his first that got a movie theatre release. I've been reading press on him and it reminds me of the press directors like Wes Craven got when they started making movies. Nobody got them until twenty years later. I think this will happen with Mr. Savage. This came out through Fox in NZ and got called SNAK a lot. Seems like a comedy at first, but is actually very dark and very clever. It has macabre touches everywhere (the Snake character's penchant for listening to the dying hearts of his victims, for example) and looks very slick. But it's very good exploitation and I don't mean that in a bad way. The action sections are directed with great confidence and energy. A blistering gunfight in a train carriage has a fury and chaos to it that one doesn't usually see in most pics from any country, then there's the final shootout...you have to see it to believe it. SNAK also has a great villain (Kevin Hopkins) and a policewoman character who'd rather get laid than make an arrest. There's also a great scene in a Chinese restaurant and some terrific lonmg takes without cuts. It's obvious that Savage loves movies because many are referenced...but there is a philosophy at work here, and that's what makes this one stand out. As with his THE MASTURBATING GUNMAN, this again is about people whose lives are lived in two opposing worlds and the struggle that involves. Definitely one of the best Australian movies for a long time.