Bullet Points: Direct Hit (1994)

PM Entertainment was not afraid to take the road less traveled when it came to the casting decisions they made during their impressive run in the direct to video market.

Kickboxers, former porn stars, TV stars of yesteryear and actors who were usually supporting players found themselves at the forefront of many a PM Entertainment release.

For example… 1994’s Direct Hit, saw William Forsythe (Stone Cold), a perennial supporting actor, get a shot at being the leading man…

• One Last Job: William Forsythe plays John Hatch, a CIA assassin who is about to embark on his final job. Hatch, who has the reputation of being the deadliest man alive, along with his rookie partner are dispatched to take out a nefarious arms dealer Kovar (Mel Novak, Sword of Heaven). Kovar will be meeting with prospective buyers to show off his inventory and Hatch and his partner are going to crash the party… and in PM Entertainment fashion, they literally crash the party as Hatch drives his car INTO the private club Kovar is conducting business at. Hatch and his partner exit the vehicle and start unloading on Kovar’s security detail. During the chaos, Kovar manages to slip outside and into his limousine… which prompts Hatch to hop back in his car and we get the obligatory PM car chase out of the way early… the chase ends in spectacular fashion too as a fire truck splits Kovar’s limo in half, killing Kovar in the process. Mission accomplished!
• Unhappy Retirement: Hatch returns to the secret headquarters of the CIA assassination squad to get his final paycheck, but his boss has another assignment for Hatch because nobody who ever does “one last job” ever does one last job in the movies… unless of course they die doing it. Hatch’s boss, James Tronson (George Segal, Army of One) justifies this new “one last job” on the fact that he was going to give it to Hatch’s rookie partner, but since his rookie partner died at the club while Hatch was chasing after Kovar, this is now Hatch’s responsibility.

• One Last Job Take Two: The job Tronson has lined up for Hatch is a “direct hit” *DING*. Hatch needs to kill a woman named Savannah (Jo Champa, Out for Justice) who is blackmailing Terry Daniels (John Aprea, Picasso Trigger), a CIA bigwig out of the New York office who is running for the United States senate, with some incriminating photos of the two in compromising positions. Hatch wants no part of the job, but when Tronson says Hatch won’t get his $250,000 paycheck, Hatch reluctantly gets to work. But something unexpected happens when Hatch sneaks into Savannah’s apartment prepared to shoot her in her sleep, he realizes Savannah has a young daughter! Hatch bails and starts trailing Savannah the next day, he soon realizes that she is not the blackmailer that Tronson and Daniels painted her out to be so Hatch refuses to do the job and heads up to the mountains to spend time with his father.
• Second Career: Hatch’s visit is short lived, the knowledge that Tronson will just send another assassin after the innocent Savannah starts to eat away at him and he heads back to the city and gets there in the nick of time! Hatch ends up saving Savannah from being run down by another CIA hitman. So now Hatch finds himself in the role of bodyguard for Savannah and tries to come up with a way to clear this up that doesn’t end with Savannah getting killed. Escaping danger at every turn, soon turns these strangers into lovers… giving Hatch even more incentive to save Savannah’s ass.

• Change in Tone: The final action piece of Direct Hit was strange. The entire look of the film changed. Everything was suddenly sepia tone and at first I thought it was a Savannah dream sequence, but this was no dream… this was the actual final action sequence and it did not disappoint living up to the explosive standards that PM Entertainment is known for.

There are some PM Entertainment titles that I was shocked I did not see back in the day, Direct Hit was not one of them. If there was a movie starring a martial artist and a movie not starring a martial artist side by side at Blockbuster, the one with the martial artist was going to win out every time.

But Direct Hit didn’t require a martial arts hero to be the lead. William Forsythe was an excellent choice to play a grizzled CIA hitman and it is probably best that Direct Hit didn’t go with Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Jeff Wincott or the fresh faced Michael Worth as its hero.

• Familiar Faces: Richard Norton (The Octagon) plays Rogers, the CIA hitman that gets the Savannah assignment after Hatch refuses to finish the job… Former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey (Bloodfist VI: Ground Zero) plays reporter Jim Jacobson.
• Best Scene: Right before the movie went into sepia tone mode, there’s a great scene with John Aprea’s Terry Daniels and George Segal’s James Tronson talking like two old warhorses about the hitman game… this was a great piece of business.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see William Forsythe get in a high speed chase with a guy hanging on to the hood of his car, then Direct Hit is the movie for you.