I would think that a top professional assassin would want to be as inconspicuous as possible and sporting a clean-shaven head with a barcode tattooed on the back is not the best way to stay off the radar, but I might be wrong. For the protagonist of Hitman is allegedly among the best in the business without being handicapped by his hairless posture and unorthodox tattoo. For him, killing exacts as much emotional strain as buying a cup of coffee would. He does not know what to do with a hot Russian girl who seems to like him a lot, either. If you think that this does not sound particularly human, you are absolutely right. The man in question is transferred to the big screen from yet another video game. The movie he is in aims expertly at all those rebellious young boys and men who seek respite from the irritatingly cheerful sugar-coated Christmas fare that no doubt floods the multiplex screens. In movies based on computer games, the emotional numbness comes with the territory, but Hitman deserves praise for at least trying to wrestle away from the dramatic flatline. The effort is not entirely successful, as the game-inspired target practice scenes upstage the human element when push comes to shove, but the movie nonetheless plays better than one would reasonably expect.

The titular hitman (Timothy Olyphant) is bred and raised as the perfect killing machine by an unholy alliance of the Catholic Church and genetic engineering, I think. He does not have a name and is only referred to as “47”. He does not have any hair, either, which is a shame because Olyphant looks better with hair, but enough has been said about that. His latest assignment is to take care of the Russian president Belicoff (Ulrich Thomsen). He does, but the victim appears in public alive and well the same day. 47 is confused and so is Interpol agent Mike Whittier (Dougray Scott), who has been tracking him for quite some time: “My boy doesn’t miss.” Soon enough 47 is being hunted by both Interpol and the Russian secret services as he disobeys an order to kill a defenseless Russian prostitute named Nika (Olga Kurylenko) in part because he wants to make sense of the mess he is in and in part because he sees in her a fellow victim with no past and future. Their flight-come-investigation from St Petersburg to Moscow is accompanied by improbable shoot outs, even more improbable escapes and what have you.

The loud action and even louder music provide the check marks in the action-film content-card that producers seem to fill out and the computer-abetted set pieces are staged by director Xavier Gens in a most fashionably disorienting fashion. The interesting thing is that the virtually emotionless protagonist is quite intriguing in his seeming self-reliance and in the way he acts as he enters uncharted emotional and human territory when he takes Nika aboard. As long as the movie explores their relationship, it is adequately absorbing, but sadly it has to live within its video game-origins straitjacket. There is always the risk that the angst-ridden teen boys the movie aims at might reject it should it not be packed with enough bang, and sadly the authors are not willing to take the risk. As a minor footnote, Hitman also proves to the audience and to producer Luc Besson that Sofia can double well for Moscow and other places should he choose to bring more of his productions here.