# Recommend some hitman movies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2007, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004 "2007-10-17T05:09:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/41 "2007-10-17T18:33:09Z")
Manhunt with Walter Pidgeon trying to assassinate Hitler and the re-make “Rogue Male” with Peter O’Toole. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/42 "2007-10-17T19:12:17Z")
A few more that haven’t been mentioned yet: John Woo’s _The Killer_, with Chow Yun-Fat Don Siegel’s _Charlie Varrick_, with Joe Don Baker doing a memorable turn as a hit man (ETA: oops, **denquixote** got there first) _Prime Cut_, another one with Lee Marvin _The Hit_, with John Hurt, Terence Stamp and Tim Roth ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/43 "2007-10-17T19:29:19Z")
I would have to say the best hitman movie made in the last 10 years was the absolutely terrific Belgian thriller \*\*[The Memory of a Killer\*\*](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374345/), about a hitman taking on one final assignment (and ensuing complications) while also dealing with the early onset of Alzheimer’s. It’s a film where the cops aren’t stooges and the “hero” is sympathetic but complicated. It’s got plenty of visual style to burn, but also takes some interesting directions in the story without being gratuitous or insulting your intelligence. Definitely worth checking out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/44 "2007-10-17T19:32:52Z")
[QUOTE=RogueRacer] How about [Assassins](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112401/)? A Stallone movie, but I’m ok with that. [/QUOTE] Pretty good, but I found the premise that Antonio Banderas is going for The Record a bit hard to swallow – I think most professional criminals understand perfectly well that fame is the one luxury they cannot afford. (Look what happened to John Gotti.) ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/45 "2007-10-17T19:42:52Z")
It wasn’t perfect, but I really liked _Lucky Number Slevin_. (How many Bruce Willis movie are going to show up on this list?) ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/46 "2007-10-17T20:08:35Z")
\*\*The Manchurian Candidate \*\*features an unwilling hitman. Check out the earlier one for, IIRC, a downright evil Angela Lansbury. ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/47 "2007-10-17T20:28:07Z")
_Diary of a Hitman_, featuring Forest Whitaker and a supremely hot Sherilyn Fenn. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/48 "2007-10-17T21:04:59Z")
[QUOTE=UncleRojelio] For once, I would like to see a hitman movie where the main character plows through a whole series of detailed hits without making a mistake, having an attack of conscious, or falling in love [/QUOTE] As mentioned, Golgo the assassin does none of the usual things Hollywood hitmen do, and his first film at least (I didn’t bother with the second on the basis of reviews) is in the middle of his career. If you can stand animation, it does a good job of capturing a comic book feel and I don’t mean that in a bad way certainly. ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/49 "2007-10-17T21:34:23Z")
_Le Samourai_ (1967) with Alain Delon. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/50 "2007-10-17T21:40:44Z")
Long Kiss Goodnight - amnesiatic hitwoman ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/51 "2007-10-17T22:07:45Z")
I third {fourth, whatever} **The Day Of The Jackal**. A masterpiece of tight film-making: there’s not a scene, a shot or a line of dialogue wasted. James Fox is utterly compelling as the ruthless yet utterly professional assassin: half of you _wants_ him to succeed, the other half is yelling “For Christ’s sake stop him!”. An excellent police procedural, too: they don’t catch him by blind luck, _deus ex machina_ or his own vaunting hubris, either: just by dogged persistence and sheer hard work. Over the Bruce Willis remake let us cast a discreet veil, since the makers apparently picked out all the elements that made the original great, and then induced a dog to be violently and copiously sick all over them. Thirded also is **The Matador** : certainly flawed, but very good in messing with a lot of the steely-eyed stone killer cliches of the genre, with Pierce Brosnan’s anti-Bond turn as a boorishly lecherous hebephile drunk. Excellent support work from Greg Kinnear, and a splendid twist in that… …Greg Kinnear owes Pierce Brosnan a professional favour not because Brosnan killed Kinnear’s business rival in Mexico and thus paved the way to Kinnear’s success - as afficionados of the genre smugly concluded early on - but precisely because Brosnan _refused_ the contract. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/52 "2007-10-17T22:31:31Z")
Just thought of another: the Hitchcockian - and vastly under-rated - **Nick Of Time** , in which villanous Christopher Walken kidnaps innocent everyman Johnny Depp’s daughter, in order to blackmail Depp into carrying out a political assassination. The catch? Depp only has just over an hour to do it, and the movie plays out in real time… ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004/53 "2007-10-17T23:27:29Z")
> [@Boyo Jim](#): > > Pulp Fiction – pretty much everybody is a hit man – can’t believe it hasn’t been mentioned yet. You mean, other than in the OP? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-hitman-movies/423004.md?page=2)