'Hitman: Agent 47': All flash, no bang

At least 30 people get killed - by gunfire, car bombs, kerplunking tumbles from balconies and stairs - before the title Hitman: Agent 47 even announces itself on screen.

The video-gamelike carnage doesn't stop there. Set in Berlin and Singapore and based on the IO Interactive "stealth" game (the company gets a prominent credit), Hitman: Agent 47 stars Homeland's Rupert Friend in the title role. His head is shaved, his lips pursed, he wears dark suits and a look of inscrutable blankness. He carries a suitcase full of weapons, including twin .45s and an array of lethal cutlery.

He is on the hunt for a woman named Katia van Dees (English actress Hannah Ware) who, in turn, is on the hunt for a mystery man who may be able to enlighten her about the heightened sense of awareness and agility she is experiencing. She also suffers from troubling visions and a propensity to get teary at the slightest provocation.

Agent 47, who sports a barcode on his nape, isn't the only guy in pursuit of Katia. There is the fellow who introduces himself as John Smith, played by Zachary Quinto with a grim mug, a three-day stubble, and none of the quizzical braininess he brings to the role of Spock in the Star Trek reboots. (The actor looks kind of naked without those pointy Vulcan ears, too.)

Smith may be out to help Katia, or he may not, but he is clearly interested in the giant map of the world she has pinned to the wall of her otherwise bare apartment, with its crisscrossed lines and scrawls, its photos, newspaper clippings, and scribbled Post-its. Dogged detectives would be proud of Katia's fevered use of thumbtacks and tape, too.

Hitman: Agent 47 has a sleek, modern look and a platoon of able stuntfolk who dive, crash, screech, and go flying in the face of fiery explosions. (By contrast, the 2007 adaptation of the video game, starring Timothy Olyphant and Olga Kurylenko, was more rhapsodic and John Woo-y.)

Director Aleksander Bach has a reel of music videos and TV ads to his credit, and a knack for getting his actors to strike dramatic poses between rounds of artillery fire. The animelike splatter action and two-fisted shoot-outs are remindful of last fall's Keanu Reeves guilty pleasure, John Wick. Ware is reminiscent of Brigitte Bardot from those 1960s movies where she wore her hair dark brown instead of blond.

If you strip away all the gunplay, Hitman: Agent 47 seems to be a movie about self-identity and the skill sets you might like to hone. "We define who we are by what we do," is an observation made more than once.

Then again, if you strip away all the gunplay, Hitman: Agent 47 would be about 10 minutes long.

EndText

215-854-5629

@Steven_Rea