Hitmen review – nihilistic mess of a gratuitously violent revenge tale

One might start to wonder if the career of British writer-director Savvas D Michael (previously responsible for The Bezonians) may be propelled, like the scam in The Producers, by a deliberate intention to make crap movies for an investment write-off. Anything is possible in the wild and wonderful world of the film business. The only other explanation is that Michael thinks the laddish, nihilistically violent and yet not in the slightest bit amusing quasi-cartoon world he’s created in Hitman is entertaining. Could anyone be that deluded?

Hitmen’s inciting incident occurs when a bickering couple, office administrator Luke (Daniel Caltagirone) and estate agent Lauren (Lois Brabin-Platt, one of the few redeeming features of the film) are harassed in a pub by a drunken visiting American (Max Lohan) who is trying pick up Lauren. They manage to punch him so badly he dies, and evade getting done for murder by claiming self-defence. This enrages the dead guy’s rich grandfather (Eric Roberts) who hires an army of hitmen to kill Luke and Lauren. Unfeasibly, each one fails to kill their quarries for increasingly absurd reasons. They end up getting protected by one soft-hearted but deadly assassin (Lucas Aurelio) who is grieving for his recently deceased wife, and is deluded in the belief that Luke and Lauren really love each other.

Moreover, the film itself is very hard to love, although in addition to Brabin-Platt there are a couple of sparky performances, including that by a woman playing a rude hotel receptionist with a wicked laugh. But too much of this plays like a bunch of kids making a throwaway home movie, with characters named Detective Kojak and Detective Columbo, and characters wearing the same outfit in every scene they’re in, regardless of the fact it’s a different day.

• Hitmen is released on 5 Jun on digital platforms.