PUNTUACIÓN EN IMDb
7,2/10
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TU PUNTUACIÓN
Añade un argumento en tu idiomaHenri is depressed after losing his job, but finds himself too afraid to go through with suicide. He hires a contract killer to do the job for him instead - but what happens if he changes hi... Leer todoHenri is depressed after losing his job, but finds himself too afraid to go through with suicide. He hires a contract killer to do the job for him instead - but what happens if he changes his mind?Henri is depressed after losing his job, but finds himself too afraid to go through with suicide. He hires a contract killer to do the job for him instead - but what happens if he changes his mind?
- Premios
- 1 premio y 3 nominaciones en total
T.R. Bowen
- Department Head
- (as Trevor Bowen)
Imogen Claire
- Secretary
- (as Imogen Clare)
Argumento
¿Sabías que...?
- CuriosidadesAki Kaurismäki: the man who sells the sunglasses to Henri.
- Citas
Henri Boulanger: Do you want to leave your home?
Margaret: The working class has no fatherland.
- ConexionesFeatured in Uuden aallon jäljillä (2009)
- Banda sonoraTime On My Hands
Music by Vincent Youmans
Lyrics by Harold Adamson and Mack Gordon
Performed by Billie Holiday
Reseña destacada
Very early in his career, the Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki established an aesthetic for his films in colour that has held for decades now: the characters are blue-collar people struggling to get by, and whatever emotions they feel, their lines of hatred, love, hope, or disappointment are communicated in an utterly deadpan, monotone fashion. The scenery is usually drab industrial buildings and rusting dockyards. Kaurismäki's 1990 film I HIRED A CONTRACT KILLER moves that formula, developed in his native Helsinki, to London. This is not the posh London of the royal family, bankers or socialites. Kaurismäki managed to find completely dilapidated locations that I would have never imagined to exist in London of that time (though no doubt they've long since been gentrified beyond recognition at this point).
Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a timid Frenchman living in London with no apparent friends or surviving family, has worked for fifteen years for a state utility. When he is made redundant in a bit of Thatcher-era privatization, he feels he has nothing more to live for. He attempts suicide twice, both tries ending in morbidly humorous failure, and he lacks the courage to try any further. He decides to enter the East End criminal underworld and to hire a paid assassin to kill him. The mob boss takes Henri's money and tells him it will be done through a subcontractor. But when Henri meets the lovely Margaret (Margi Clarke) and starts coming out of his shell, he suddenly has second thoughts. Unable to call off the job, he and Margaret try to evade the hit-man (Kenneth Colley), already on Boulanger's trail.
Kaurismäki's films are, to a large extent, dark comedies, and there are some laughs here. I also appreciated the element of homage to Kaurismäki's forebears and peers here. Colley's sad hit-man and the way the shots frame him was surely drawn from the crime capers that Jean-Pierre Melville shot in his last years. Kaurismäki's perennial love for drab scenery had been boosted by his newly established friendship with Jim Jarmusch, a director who presented America at this time as so many vacant lots and abandoned buildings.
Still, I wouldn't consider this among Kaurismäki's best work. One of the things that makes Kaurismäki's main, Finnish-language output so hilarious is that the characters speak in literary Finnish (nearly a different language than colloquial Finnish). When the dialogue is in English and with a mix of UK accents, the formula is not quite as effective. Jean-Pierre Léaud's English is almost incomprehensible -- the actor has been a titan of French film since the New Wave of Truffaut and Godard, but he's not proficient enough in English to do English-language cinema. Kaurismäki no doubt wanted intended the character to sound that way, but it feels off for this viewer. I'd recommend this film only to those who have enjoyed a series of Kaurismäki's stronger films.
Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a timid Frenchman living in London with no apparent friends or surviving family, has worked for fifteen years for a state utility. When he is made redundant in a bit of Thatcher-era privatization, he feels he has nothing more to live for. He attempts suicide twice, both tries ending in morbidly humorous failure, and he lacks the courage to try any further. He decides to enter the East End criminal underworld and to hire a paid assassin to kill him. The mob boss takes Henri's money and tells him it will be done through a subcontractor. But when Henri meets the lovely Margaret (Margi Clarke) and starts coming out of his shell, he suddenly has second thoughts. Unable to call off the job, he and Margaret try to evade the hit-man (Kenneth Colley), already on Boulanger's trail.
Kaurismäki's films are, to a large extent, dark comedies, and there are some laughs here. I also appreciated the element of homage to Kaurismäki's forebears and peers here. Colley's sad hit-man and the way the shots frame him was surely drawn from the crime capers that Jean-Pierre Melville shot in his last years. Kaurismäki's perennial love for drab scenery had been boosted by his newly established friendship with Jim Jarmusch, a director who presented America at this time as so many vacant lots and abandoned buildings.
Still, I wouldn't consider this among Kaurismäki's best work. One of the things that makes Kaurismäki's main, Finnish-language output so hilarious is that the characters speak in literary Finnish (nearly a different language than colloquial Finnish). When the dialogue is in English and with a mix of UK accents, the formula is not quite as effective. Jean-Pierre Léaud's English is almost incomprehensible -- the actor has been a titan of French film since the New Wave of Truffaut and Godard, but he's not proficient enough in English to do English-language cinema. Kaurismäki no doubt wanted intended the character to sound that way, but it feels off for this viewer. I'd recommend this film only to those who have enjoyed a series of Kaurismäki's stronger films.
- crculver
- 1 nov 2016
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Detalles
- Fecha de lanzamiento
- Países de origen
- Idiomas
- Títulos en diferentes países
- I Hired a Contract Killer
- Localizaciones del rodaje
- Holborn Viaduct, Londres, Inglaterra, Reino Unido(Henri's office)
- Empresas productoras
- Ver más compañías en los créditos en IMDbPro
- Duración1 hora 19 minutos
- Color
- Relación de aspecto
- 1.85 : 1
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By what name was Contraté un asesino a sueldo (1990) officially released in India in English?
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