Review: 'The Big Hit' is a big miss

April 24, 1998
Web posted at: 9:57 p.m. EDT (0157 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Clinton

(CNN) -- Two big names in the action genre, producer John Woo ("Face/Off," "The Replacement Killers") and director Che-Kirk Wong, have gotten together for "The Big Hit," a nonstop action comedy about a gang of hit men involved in a kidnapping gone wrong.

Reviewer Paul Clinton tells us why "The Big Hit" is not

Their past works have earned both men an international reputation for interesting work in the action genre. Yet despite the talent and skill which Woo and Wong have brought to past productions, "The Big Hit" is little more than high- concept trash.

Watch the movie preview of The Big Hit
	901K/24 sec./160x120 QuickTime movie

This insult of a film is from the adrenaline-fueled school of louder-faster-and-bigger equals better. It doesn't. Mark Wahlberg, who I think has an interesting career ahead of him, plays Mel, a sensitive hit man who wants everyone to like him. Unfortunately, Wahlberg comes off like a babbling idiot.

But it's Lou Diamond Phillips, playing psycho hit man Cisco, whose acting is so embarrassing he should change at least one of his three names and retire to dinner theater in Iowa.

Antonio Sabato Jr., Robin Dunne and Bokeem Woodbine star as their hit man cohorts.

"The Big Hit," billed as an action/comedy, is, at times, hilarious. But there's a difference between laughing with a movie and laughing at it. This film is ridiculous.

Thirty people are killed in the first 10 minutes, making this ludicrous group of hit men look like combat commandos as they try to take out an entire high-rise office building where a white slavery group is doing business.

After blowing away dozens of bad guys, our bad guys decide to take on a little moonlighting gig to make some extra cash. Cisco comes up with a lamebrained plot to kidnap the daughter of a rich industrialist. Unfortunately, the girl turns out to be the godchild of the hit men's boss, a scary guy named Paris (Avery Brooks). When the plan backfires, Cisco blames the whole thing on the hapless Mel, who instantly becomes a wanted man.

Meanwhile, poor Mel is fleeing for his life, in debt up to his eyeballs and trapped between his greedy mistress and his spendthrift fiancee. There are comedic possibilities in this story about a hit man with low self-esteem and co-dependency issues, but they're never really explored in this action (for-action's-sake) bloodfest.

Christina Applegate comes across OK, in a cartoonish kind of way, as Wahlberg's fiancee. But Elliott Gould and Lainie Kazan are way over the top playing Applegate's parents.

Now, let's talk about Lela Rochon. While playing Wahlberg's money-hungry mistress, she does a bad impression of Robin Givens doing a bad impression of Lady Chablis doing this role. Rochon should join Phillips in Iowa.

For fans of underwear model-turned-actor Sabato, he takes his clothes off in one scene and smiles a lot. He's only in the film at the very beginning and again at the very end. Don't look for an Academy nomination.

Basically, this flick is a cross between the Los Angeles rap scene and Hong Kong action trash, and it's not a pretty picture. Action alone doesn't make a film work; this testosterone sandwich will be hard to swallow even for the target audience of 14-year-old boys.

This film is not only stupid, it's also degrading to women. Come to think of it, it's even degrading to hit men. "The Big Hit" runs 93 minutes and is rated R for violence, pervasive language and some sexuality.

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