The Big Hit (1998) / Action-Comedy

MPAA Rated: R for violence, nudity, sexuality and language
Running Time: 91 min.

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christina Applegate, Avery Brooks, China Chow
Director: Kirk Wong
Screenplay: Ben Ramsey
Review published October 24, 1998

A crew of hitmen make the fatal blunder of kidnapping a young Chinese daughter (Chow, Sol Goode) of a wealthy businessman for ransom. One major problem: the girl is their boss' goddaughter and he wants whoever stole her to suffer greatly. Meanwhile, one of the hitmen (Wahlberg, Boogie Nights) suffers through difficulties in his love life due to the fact that he wants everyone to love him.

This mix of comedy and action handles both adequately, but the weak script and a disappointing ensemble of actors keeps this film from making the jump into a successful vehicle. There are some nice stunt pieces and some funny moments, but they are mostly drowned in the director's (Wong, Organized Crime & Triad Bureau) effort to make this film hip and subsequently losing all focus on what should be front and center, i.e. the plot.

Entertaining and watchable, but still less than good due to the messy plot structure and overall noise.

Qwipster's rating:

©1998 Vince Leo