It was freshman year, and in our dorm room Ryan Vai was rifling through his VHS collection. Imagine a mustachioed A.C. Slater look-alike with a longer mullet, a muscle-shirt, and parachute pants. Envision him pumping a mini-head-bang as he rocked himself over to the VCR.
“Dude, this is gonna be sweeeeet,” he crowed, eyes wide, fist in the air, slapping a copy of 1998′s The Big Hit into the machine.
The next 91 minutes were a particularly heinous breed — a vapid action flick that forced me at gunpoint to actually like it despite having so, so, so many shortcomings.
On the good side: After missing Hard Target (starring Wilford Brimley!) and Face/Off, this is how I was finally introduced to John Woo (who produced, but didn’t direct The Big Hit). Kids, trust me when I say Woo-ist fight scenes changed everything. They’re all about gymnastic use of the set and short cuts, and without them there would be no The Matrix. If nothing else, watch the opening fight sequence from seven minutes in until the 15 minute mark.
On the bad side: The Big Hit proved a less intelligent precursor to The Transporter with less charisma, more caricature, too much Marky Mark, and not enough Lou Diamond Phillips. And for what was billed as ostensibly an action film, the fights are few and far between, supplanted with awkward and unfulfilling black comedy. It misses bigger than it hits.
The plot: Assassins-for-hire pull a kidnapping on the side, only to discover their target is god-daughter to underworld boss Avery “Captain Benjamin Sisko” Brooks. To escape Brooks’ wrath, Lou Diamond Phillips (cunningly named Cisco — a DS9 homage?) frames Marky Mark for the kidnapping and goes on a murderous spree. Meanwhile, the Japanese kidnappee suffers Stockholm Syndrome with Marky Mark, who is already engaged to Christina Applegate and has a baby mama on the side. Hijinx ensue.
Keeping it real: Now I love the depravity of gritty crime flicks that glorify the anti-hero. I mean, hey, Goodfellas is my favorite movie, with a certain Mario Puzo adaptation in a close second place.
But this is no Godfather, and Mark Wahlberg is no Al Pacino. We don’t get truly complex or sympathetic characters suffering the consequences of their lifestyle. The assassins of The Big Hit are con-men, damnedable killers with no remorse, compulsive liars out for themselves and only themselves, cheaters who murder friends on a whim and routinely dispose of bodies in the bathtub.
To be fair, writer Ben Ramsey seemed to understand all this, sprinkling the script with self-deprecating plot devices. For instance, there’s a fake movie-within-the-movie called Taste the Golden Spray. There’s also a way to block the trace that’s tracing the trace on your phone call — the fabled Trace Buster Buster Buster. These are blaring sirens screaming out, “Hey, dudes, we know this plot is ridiculous! It’s just an excuse for some jokes, a hot Asian chick, gratuitous shots of Christina Applegate’s ass, and some tight gun-fu!”
The talent: It’s not often you can say the character with the most depth in a given film is played by Mark Wahlberg. For every Boogie Nights there’s a Planet of the Apes — or worse, The Happening. But his Melvin Smiley is just complex enough to drive along the absurd Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner-meets-The Replacement Killers hybrid plot. He’s the hitman with a heart of gold, ripped off more or less from Grosse Pointe Blank. He’s clearly the best killer of the bunch, but fixated on getting everyone to like him (even his victims). To balance his good guy/bad guy double identity, and to put up with the manipulative women in his life, he constantly guzzles antacid. It’s a fun but wet character.
The more talented Lou Diamond Phillips plays his nemesis, who I’ll grant is less complex but far better acted. Cisco is a sleazy, lazy, egotistical foil for Wahlberg. There’s too much Butabi Brother moron in Cisco for him to ever come out on top, and you can see every maniacal little thought jumping out his beady eyes. It’s the prominent and cheap-looking gold crown that’s constantly flashed in Cisco’s evil smiles that seals the role.
There’s only one other actor worth writing about — China Chow as the cute schoolgirl kidnappee, Keiko. That’s her real name, by the way, though it’s hard to believe. China Chow. Yeah. Right. She’s hot in her little plaid skirt, and the film’s makers swear up and down she’s supposed to be in college, and not high school. There’s no statutory stuff goin’ on here, officer. Nope.
This was Chow’s acting debut (she was previously a model), and though she was just fine there’s little else on her filmography. The most notable appearances are a one-off on That ’70s Show and a voice job on one of the Grand Theft Auto games.
Do as I say, not as I do: Yeah, The Big Hit is one of my guilty pleasures, but it’s the cinema equivalent of the swine flu. Just because I’m sick doesn’t I should spread it to you. Its 5.8 rating on IMDB seems innocuous enough until you consider the 38 percent grade on Rotten Tomatoes. Matter of fact, the Interwebz seem split on this one, with reviewers of all ilks calling it either 1) one of the worst abortions ever churned out by Hollywood… or 2) the best of the Woo-inspired brainless shoot ‘em up flicks best viewed while under the influence.
The dollar signs tell the same story. The Big Hit opened at number one on a bad week in April, raking in just over $10 million. It was gone in a matter of weeks, making $27 million (barely twice its budget) before disappearing into obscurity. As far as the 1998 box office goes, it was a nothing — not even in the top 50 of the year.
Personally, I think it’s all about inebriation and age limit. Ideally, you’ll enjoy Marky Mark and the Assassin Bunch as a 16-year-old boy who’s brand new to R-rated action. If you’re of legal age, you shouldn’t watch without a great deal of Jack Daniels for backup.
~ Jason
