Bullet Points: The Hitman (1991)
As a Cannon devotee and a Chuck Norris enthusiast it almost pains me to admit that there was one Chuck Norris movie produced by Cannon that I had yet to see… 1991’s The Hitman. What makes it even worse is I have owned a copy of The Hitman for years (as part of The Bombs, Babes & Blockbusters of Cannon Films collection).
It is time to finally right this wrong on the eve of Chuck Norris’ 82nd birthday no less…
- Good Cop, Bad Cop: The movie starts off with Detective Ronny “Del” Delaney (Michael Parks, Death Wish V: The Face of Death) on a seemingly boring stakeout with fellow detective, Cliff Garrett (Chuck Norris, Invasion U.S.A.). The two cops are down by the docks looking for nefarious activity… but it seems there is none to be found that night despite Garrett’s gut is telling him there is something wrong. And that’s when Garrett notices some flashing lights in the windows of a nearby building, he takes off to investigate and tells Del to call for backup… but Del doesn’t call for backup, because Del has gone dirty. Garrett finds out the hard way that Del has switched sides when Dirty Del puts two bullets in Garrett, forcing him to be ejected from a fourth story window and falling on to a station wagon below… Garrett is rushed to the hospital where he flatlines before the doctors are able to revive him and save his life. But as far as the world is concerned, Detective Cliff Garrett is now dead.
- Oh Danny Boy: Garrett is now deep undercover as Danny Grogan, a mob enforcer working for Marco Luganni (Al Waxman, Iron Eagle IV). Grogan reports only to Chambers… who is obviously a fed of some description, quite possibly DEA, but it is never clearly stated. What is clear is that Chambers was played by Ken Pogue, who could be best described as a poor man’s R. Lee Ermey. Grogan’s objective is to get Luganni and his underworld rival Lacombe together, so there could be a two for one bust if you will. Not only is Grogan undercover, he is also getting under the covers with Luganni’s lady, Christine De Vera (Alberta Watson, The Soldier) which seems like a complication that Grogan could have avoided. There is also a wild card in this underworld drama with a group of Iranians that have muscled their way into Luganni’s turf… even wilder is the fact that Ronny “Del” Delaney is working with them… which was an unexpected way to work Del back into the story and if there is one complaint I had about The Hitman, it was that there wasn’t more of Michael Parks.
- Murphy’s Law: With all that is going on with the undercover operation, The Hitman still manages to jam in a B story with Danny Grogan befriending Tim Murphy, a kid who lives in his apartment building. Grogan gives Tim a place to hang out and build model planes when his mom is working one of her three jobs and even teaches Tim how to fight and watches proudly as he stands up to the neighborhood bully. Unfortunately for Tim, his side story ends up getting mixed up with the main story, when he is in Grogan’s apartment when it is blown up by that no good bastard Del.
- Go To The Mattresses: The Hitman has plenty of R rated violence (another reason why Chuck’s Sidekicks practice seemed forced) as the mob war heats up as the movie goes on. And while I am a fan of mafia movie violence, I am a bigger fan of Chuck Norris getting revenge and obviously the events from the start of the movie with Del’s betrayal of Cliff Garrett come back to bite him in the ass in graphic fashion before the end credits on The Hitman roll.
The Hitman was enjoyable but it had a split personality. It felt like there were three ideas for a Chuck Norris movie… one with Chuck being betrayed by his friend, one with Chuck caught up in the middle of a mob war and one where Chuck takes a kid under his wing. But instead of selecting one of those movie ideas, they just jammed all three of them together in The Hitman.
I am about to jam some Bonus Bullet Points on the end of this review…
- Directed By: Chuck’s brother Aaron Norris was the director for The Hitman. Aaron directed his older brother in Braddock: Missing in Action III and Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection prior to The Hitman.
- How Cold Is It? Quote: “It’s so damn cold, my dick’s like a short stack of buttons.” – Del
- Inspiration: I can’t help but wonder if Chuck’s mullet in The Hitman was the inspiration for Jean-Claude Van Damme’s magnificent mullet in Hard Target.
- How Horny Are You? Quote: “I’m so damn horny, I could fuck mud.” – Del
