The Big Hit [CRACKED]
The Big Hit is a 1998 American action comedy film directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Che-Kirk Wong, and stars Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christina Applegate, Bokeem Woodbine, Antonio Sabà to Jr., China Chow, Avery Brooks, Lainie Kazan, Elliott Gould, Sab Shimono and Lela Rochon.
The Big Hit
Melvin Smiley has a good life thanks to his talents as a contract-killer, but has a very working class mentality going about his life, in combination with his constant struggles to maintain two romantic relationships. One is with the demanding and demeaning Chantel, who does not accept his work, and the other with Pam, who knows nothing of his job. Melvin is somewhat of a pushover, trying to appease all of Chantel's demands, even her most expensive wishes, as well as rolling over whenever one of his co-workers takes credit for his achievements. Perhaps as a result of his helplessness in asserting himself, throughout the early scenes, Melvin is often seen drinking Maalox to relieve a developing stress-induced ulcer.
Feeling underpaid for their work for mob boss Paris, the assassin team of Smiley, Cisco, Crunch, Vince and Gump take an independent job, kidnapping Keiko Nishi, the teenage daughter of local electronics magnate Jiro Nishi, for a hefty ransom. Unfortunately, the team does not realize that Nishi has recently gone bankrupt over his failed foray into films and furthermore, their boss Paris is the girl's godfather. Enlisted by the group to hold Keiko, Melvin has to hide the bound and gagged schoolgirl on his property, attempting to keep her presence hidden from Pam and her parents, who are coming for dinner.
Melvin feels sorry for Keiko and relieves her from her bondage. In the ensuing hours they build up a rapport preparing dinner together, an act which leads into a love scene reminiscent of the pottery scene from Ghost, but which is cut short when Keiko attempts to escape. Ordered by Paris to discover the kidnappers of his goddaughter, a panicked Cisco kills Gump, but not before coaxing him into also implicating Melvin for the kidnapping.
A team of assassins crash Melvin's dinner with Pam's family, leading to a shootout during which Melvin realizes Pam was going to break up with him over pressure from her mother, a hardcore Jew who is severely against her being with Melvin, a Gentile. Melvin and Keiko's growing feelings for each other lead them to forming an awkward romance, and she and Melvin attempt to escape from the fiasco, pursued by Cisco. In the chaos, Melvin happens to run into Chantel and finally takes the opportunity to stand up to her and end their relationship.
A fight ensues between Cisco and Melvin, culminating at a video store where the ever-honest Melvin stops to return an overdue tape of King Kong Lives. Melvin kills Cisco by stabbing him in the chest, but not before Cisco arms an explosive device. Melvin leaves the building and is confronted by Keiko, her father and Paris. He re-enters the building, which explodes.
Paris and Nishi, believing Melvin to be dead, call off the manhunt. Soon Melvin is revealed to have survived, sheltered from the blast by an enormous solid gold film stand-up made for the flop that destroyed Nishi's career. Melvin and Keiko are reunited and ride off together, while Nishi recoups his losses by making a film out of the story of his daughter's kidnapping.
Jack Matthews commented in the Los Angeles Times that "The Big Hit, which was brought to Wesley Snipes' production company by Hong Kong legend John Woo, attempts to take the East-West merger even further, and the result is an only fitfully funny comic mongrel."[5]
Remarked Roger Ebert, "I guess you could laugh at this. You would have to be seriously alienated from normal human values and be nursing a deep-seated anger against movies that make you think even a little, but you could laugh."[6]
The New York Times' Lawrence Van Gelder was equally scathing: "If The Big Hit had any valid claim to excellence, rest assured that its release would have been delayed till summer. That, experience shows, is the proper season for movies built on a foundation of lavish crime, carnage, comedy, chases, crashes and chicks. The Big Hit has all these elements, and none are top-of-the-line. The name of John Woo, the talented Hong Kong-school director of the hit Face/Off, is plastered around The Big Hit. But this bait should not deter the eye from the switch: Woo is an executive producer. The director of The Big Hit is Che-Kirk Wong, another Hong Kong veteran, making his North American debut. Insatiable moviegoers are advised to wait till this action-comedy, written by Ben Ramsey, thuds into video stores; tasteful moviegoers will avoid it altogether."[7]
In a retrospective review published in 2010, critic Leonard Maltin praised the film as a guilty pleasure, and said that "most critics despised The Big Hit, and audiences didn't flock to see it, perhaps confused as to whether it was a comedy or an action movie ... and never dreaming it was a hybrid of the two." He also states, "it expands its ideas to such a ludicrous extreme that you can't take it seriously, and that's just what I like about it."[9]
Then they dress for work. They're all garbed as utility workers,with hard hats, toolboxes and wide leather belts holding wrenches andflashlights. As they saunter down the street to Graeme Revell's pumpingsoundtrack, they look like a downsized road company version of the VillagePeople.
The plot: They attack the heavily defended high-rise strongholdof a rich pimp who has just purchased three new girls for $50,000 a head. Theybreak in with guns blazing, and there's an extended action sequence ending withone of the heroes diving out of an upper floor on a bungee cord, just ahead ofa shattering explosion. And so on.
Keiko falls in love with Melvin with astonishing rapidity. Sure,she tries to escape, but by the end she realizes her future lies with his. Willthis complicate Melvin's life? Not any more than it already is.
Many more action scenes. Cars explode. Cars are shot at. Carsland in trees. They fall out of trees. Remember those old serials where someonegot killed at the end of an installment, but at the beginning of the nextinstallment you see them leap quickly to safety? That trick is played threetimes in this movie. Whenever anyone gets blowed up real good, you waitserenely for the instant replay.
I guess you could laugh at this. You would have to be seriouslyalienated from normal human values and be nursing a deep-seated anger againstmovies that make you think even a little, but you could laugh.
The criminal anarchy is hilarious when a foursome of full-time hit men looking to score extra cash kidnap the boss' goddaughter. And when beleaguered wise guy Mel is set up to take the fall, underworld antics and domestic absurdities collide for a working weekend no one will soon forget. Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christina Applegate, Bokeem Woodbine and Antonio Sabato, Jr. star in this explosive action comedy.
The story is inspired by true events in Sweden in 1985, when Swedish actor Jan Jönson tried to stage a public performance of Waiting For Godot with a group of inmates from a high security prison in the historic Gothenburg City Theatre.
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Affable hit man Melvin Smiley is constantly being scammed by his cutthroat colleagues in the life-ending business. So, when he and his fellow assassins kidnap the daughter of an electronics mogul, it's naturally Melvin who takes the fall when their prime score turns sour. That's because the girl is the goddaughter of the gang's ruthless crime boss. But, even while dodging bullets, Melvin has to keep his real job secret from his unsuspecting fiancée, Pam.
Mark Wahlberg Lou Diamond Phillips Christina Applegate China Chow Avery Brooks Antonio Sabà to, Jr. Bokeem Woodbine Elliott Gould Lainie Kazan Robin Dunne Danny Smith Sab Shimono Lela Rochon Matt Birman
Mark Gingras Goro Koyama Andy Malcolm Michael O'Farrell Don White Terry Burke Wayne Griffin Mark L. Mangino Tony Van den Akker Andy Koyama Tom Bjelic Sandy Gendler Keith Elliott Douglas Ganton Ron Mellegers Brad Thornton
Mark Wahlberg just wants to return King Kong Lives to the VHS rental store. Too bad that his assassin co-workers, his in-laws and the girl that he has kidnapped, prevent him from doing so in a timely fashion.
Man, I love it when Hong Kong filmmakers try their hand at making American action movies (this was directed by Kirk Wong and produced by John Woo). The results are often so extremely over-the-top. It is silliness in the best way imaginable.
I first saw this in '98, at age 12, via a used VHS tape that my grandma bought me at a flea market. She thought it was obnoxious. I, rightly at the time, thought it was the greatest movie ever made. It does, after all, have everything and is unabashedly a product of its decade: an obvious HK influence to its action, practical stunts that are still legit impressive, a soundtrack that feels plucked from infomercials, obligatory video store sequences, a color palette that resembles a Trapper Keeper and only timeliest of pop-culture references - I see you "Spice Boys".
Can too much tongue in cheek, self-aware humour be bad for a film? Hell no! This film has absurd humour, silly action sequences, farcical comedy and a hitman addicted to masturbation. What's not to like? Pure, unbridled fun. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less!
In 1998, just 10 short years after his little incident with an Asian-American gentleman, the ex-head banana of the Funky Bunch was desperate to rebrand himself as a Timberlake-esque hit man with social anxiety that seduces the kidnapped daughter of a Japanese businessman in a cinematic cluster that feels like Axe Body Spray and Maxim Magazine wrote a movie together. 041b061a72