Hit Me

With the success of Secretary director Steven Shainberg's earlier film Hit Me nows comes out on DVD. Unfortunately Hit Me would have benefited from a more experienced director adapting the source material, Jim Thompson's novel A Swell Looking Babe. Thompson's work has been extremely difficult to film inasmuch as most of his writing relates to the inner thoughts and emotions of his characters, rather that simply plot and dialog. Director Shainberg and leading man Elias Koteas attempt to deal with this through an over the top display of physical acting. If facial contortions represent emotion then obviously even more facial contortions represents even more emotion. This is combined with leading lady Laure Marsac who is blank faced throughout the film (although this French actress might have had trouble in English). Jim Thompson's novels contain a strong element of black comedy and initially, based on these acting choices and the bright lighting not associated with noir films, I thought Shainberg was going for black comedy. Imagine my surprise, as the film progressed and I discovered that we were supposed to take this seriously. It completely fails to work. It is not dark enough to reflect Thompson's noir and not comedic enough to reflect Thompson's black comedy. These choices ultimately have to laid at the feet of director Shainberg. Of the lesser characters, William H. Macy, highlighted in the DVD advertising, has a single short scene as a cop questioning Koteas. Macy is amusing as he cites the last meals of various killers. Philip Baker Hall uses his strong presence to offset a poorly written character. Tragically this was Haing S. Ngor's last film before he was senselessly killed in a robbery. He has only a few lines, as a hotel clerk, and its sad to think that this is the last role for an Academy award winner (The Killing Fields). All in all, you would be more entertained buying Thompson's novel than buying this DVD.

Hit Me, Steven Shainberg's (Secretary) directorial debut has a lot going for it including a great cast and a truly striking set to utilize. Unfortunately, the story is utterly ridiculous. The first half hour is a long, drawn out affair I guess to establish Elias Koteas' character, who seems to be nothing more than a series of ticks. We find out he has a brother who is mentally retarded, and the state wants to take away, but Elias will not let them happen. On the verge of losing his job at a two star hotel, he becomes involved in an incident (which I won't reveal here) that is so muddled, so badly played out and so unbelievable that I found it hard to believe that the rest of the motivations of the characters in this movie, rested on it. If the source material (a Jim Thompson novel) was unclear,

Shainberg certainly didn't make it any clearer which leads to the main character entering into a heist for truly inane reasons. It's hard to get excited about a heist when the reasoning behind it is virtually nonexistent. Yes, there are heists for the sake of heists - and often that works fine - but this film spends a lot of time and energy trying to establish some reason for this to take place, but fails to convince.

Good film noir, relies on amoral men, sexual women and desperate desires. Hit Me which claims to be a film noir is simply desperate - for a good story and a stronger execution.

Been on a Jim Thompson adaptation kick recently, both novels and film adaptations. This film captures his small time screwed up loser desperation universe perfectly, I don't know how close to the book A Swell Looking Dame, it is, it is next on my to read pile, but as a stand alone film it works. It's a great Neo Noir and I got a bit of a Blue Velvet Lynch-esque vibe from it, though a comparatively low key vibe but in a good way.

Elias Koteas performance as Sonny the goof ball night bellhop really shines. Sonny stuck in a dead end job is reduced to swiping hotel VHS players and cases of hotel booze to make ends meet. He is supporting, on his own, his mentally challenged older brother. Sonny occasionally even pimps hookers to lonely business men out of hotel rooms. After multiple viewings a fragment of cinematic memory finally "hit me", think of what a good, serious, tragic-comedic Red Skelton performance may have looked like in a film noir, some of Koteas' facial expressions are that dead on, but other comedians like Huntz Hall also come to mind. This probably flew over the heads of the then current (1996) film demographic for most of whom Skelton and Hall are non entities. But Koteas goes even further creating his own believable lunatic of a character who constantly talks to himself and habitually is physically pumping up his ego for various tasks by acting out and letting fly with compulsive manic gestures.

Laure Marsac as Monique Roux simmers delectably, a soiled dove-ish French Canadian griffter/hostess/hooker, the femme fatale of the film. The seemingly incessant Tacoma rains depresses her character to the point of despair. Marsac ranges all the way from waifish crumbling beauty, to sloe eyed temptress, and finally boils as a deadly Diana in an explosive chase sequence set in the streets of a deserted warehouse district. Her sole life quest focusing her character, seems to be to get to "Gay Paree" any way she can by any low life means possible. She carries an Eiffel Tower tchotchke that lights up and plays her leitmotif. It acts as a sort of dream navigation beacon to mother ship Paris. She's fun to watch.

Jay Leggett plays Sonny's childlike dependent older brother Leroy, practically house bound in a "crazy house" dwelling strewn with food containers & decorated with discarded toys. He is way over weight, a good natured human Muppet who tells Sonny that he wants to go to Foster Care because there he can eat all the ice cream he wants.

Kevin J. O'Connor is Cougar, a harelip scarred, sadistic thug of a loan shark who has recently become the hotel security man, Bruce Ramsay is Del a former bellhop buddy of Sonny who has hit the big time. He connives Sonny into a plan to rob a high stakes illegal poker game.

Philip Baker Hall is great as Lenny Ish, the hotel's biggest client and the local mobster who grouses that he used to live in "a five star country".

William H. Macy unexpectedly shows up in a great little cameo as a homicide detective. J. C. Quinn and Haing S. Ngor play Sonny's fellow night shift employees.

The studio sets capture the cheapo 2-3 star hotel world, and a nice opening montage shows Sonny schlepping through his various dead end bellhop job duties in the bowels of hotel housekeeping, accompanied by a plucky melody that becomes Sonny's leitmotif. Later when Sonny & Monique make love their two leitmotifs combine into a nice score by Peter Manning Robinson.

Of course, being a Neo Noir everything goes terribly wrong for ridiculously simple reasons, in this case a change of diet, and the film leaves Sonny and Leroy setting off on a trip to Nowheresville, sitting in their rusty, trusty beater Chevy, orbiting the edge of the Twilight Zone in the universe of lost dreams.

9/10

Based on Jim Thompson's 'A Swell Looking Babe', 'Hit Me' is about a bellhop - Sonny - getting involved in a scheme to steal $500,000 from high-end, illegal poker players. The swell looking babe is a French girl, Monique, and Sonny thinks his share of the money will allow him to start a new life with her. That isn't going to come easily. Monique is unreliable, hooked up with the criminals, and has suicidal tendencies. The path of love never does run smooth, does it? As in the book, Sonny is an interesting character, fuelled by three elements - his love of Monique, his hatred of his job, and his refusal to accept help to care for his disabled brother, Leroy. Sonny is over his head in it all, and once the heist goes pear-shaped, he's frantically scraping around to try a make it clear.

Elias Kotsas does a decent job playing Sonny. He looks a lot like Robert De Niro and effectively gets across one of De Niro's big skills - playing desperate psychosis. At times this can veer into comedy, and it's unclear whether this is always intentional. Kotsas acts emotions very physically - mock-humping the air before he goes into Monique's room and pepping himself up by jumping through four different positions before meeting the main poker player.

As in Thompson's novels, 'Hit Me' presents a world where no character can be trusted. Even the "good guy" - Sonny - is as shady and money grabbing as the rest, at one stage happily considering becoming a cocaine dealer. It's film noir taken to its limits... not in terms of visual style but in terms of characterisation.

Stacked up against the beautiful economy of Mamet's 'Heist' or Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Hit Me' does drag a little and doesn't have quite enough twists and turns to merit lasting over two hours. And, whilst shot cleanly and effectively, it lacks cinematic impact. However, there's a nice undercurrent of philosophising over the nature of survival and, whether you're a Thompson fan or not, you could do worse than checking out this interesting little movie.

I absolutely loved this movie. I hopelessly found myself attached to the emotions of the characters. The love he had for his brother, the hope that he could find love with this beautiful stranger, the despair of being lost in a dead-end job, the continuous struggle to escape his reality through his rash actions and desperation. If you have even been low like he was, you'd relate to everything in this movie. There's a chance you'll be bored watching it, but the actors and directors made me feel every emotion to the fullest in this film while making me think during and afterwards. I recommend it to anyone who like Darren Aronofsky films.