The Palm Beach Post

‘Hitman: Agent 47’ DOA at your local cineplex

Go see ‘American Ultra’ instead of this senseless crap.

- By Katie Walsh Triune News Service Starring Rupert Running time:

If you see one movie about government­ally modifified assassins this weekend, don’t make it “Hitman: Agent 47.” “American Ultra” is the far superior take on the unknowing super spy, because it takes itself far less seriously, and can actually poke fun at the genre. “Hitman: Agent 47” was just never going to be able to keep up, especially with its overly serious take on the genre. It’s so coldbloode­d, it’s practicall­y reptilian.

Directed by newcomer Aleksander Bach, with a screenplay by Skip Woods and Michael Finch, the story seems overly complicate­d but is actually quite simple: Someone’s trying to make more of the geneticall­y enhanced “agents,” and in order to succeed, they need to fifind the originator of the project, Litvenko (Ciarán Hinds), who has dropped offff the face of the earth. In pursuit are Agent 47 (Rupert Friend), a contract killer so focused on

sequences of strong violence, and some language.

Friend, Zachary Quinto, Hannah Ware, Ciarán Hinds. Directed by Aleksander Bach

minutes

1 hour, 36

There’s a half-baked attempt to answer some existentia­l questions about the nature of humanity when you’re a murderous robot person, but the sentimenta­lit y doesn’t mesh with the fifilm’s desire for cathartic, cinematic violence. Unfortunat­ely, the action that we do get is chaotic and incomprehe­nsible, largely bloodless, and without any sense of tension.

Agent 47’s motivation­s aren’t clear because he’s barely a human, despite Katia’s protestati­ons otherwise.

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 ??  ?? Rupert Friend
Rupert Friend

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