Hired to Kill (1990)

I enjoyed director Nico Mastorakis' action packed "Nightmare at Noon", so when I found a copy of his action movie "Hired to Kill" in a thrift store, I bought it with the expectation I would be getting more of the same. Boy, was I surprised - and not in a good way. I can excuse the plot of the movie being a blatant rip-off of "The Dirty Dozen", since it is still a good premise after all of those years, and Mastorakis put in the twist of the people being hired by Brian Thompson's character all being women. However, despite that twist, the character are unbearable. Thompson is extremely curt and grumpy all the way through, and his female mercenaries are given next to no development with their characters. They all act alike and are completely interchangeable. As for the major talent, George Kennedy obviously knocked off all his scenes in a couple of days or so, and Oliver Reed obviously knocked off several drinks before his scenes were filmed.You might be saying, "I don't really care about that stuff - all I'm interested in are some good action sequences." Well, even if you have that viewpoint, you'll be disappointed with this movie. Believe it or not, the first 70 or so minutes are pretty much action free. The last 20 or so minutes do have some action, but except for a few cool looking explosions, the action is generic and nothing special at all. It's certainly not worth the wait.To sum up, this is just one of many lame straight to video action movies released during the 1990s. Even those who like B movies and can often forgive their shortcomings - and I am such a person - will find this hard to sit through.

To the untrained, casual action film fan, this is just another run of the mill wannabe Arnie movie about a ruthless special guest star who is trying to take control of a country for one reason or another, so another special guest star hires a beefcake to help overthrow him.But the thing that makes this film standout just that little bit more from other straight to video movies is just how the the rag tag team get into the country....A fashion photographer and seven models travel to a South American island fortress, ostensibly to do a fashion shoot. In reality, the photographer is a mercenary and their job is to free an imprisoned rebel leader.........And that plot synopsis is the only reason to watch this otherwise dull, by the numbers action movie where our heroes shoot monochrome uniform wearing bad guys, and watch them fall down dying in the silliest way possible.Thompson does have screen presence, but it's not in this. He's too busy trying to channel Stallone and Schwarzeneggar, when he should have just made his character his own, and try not to guess what the audience wanted.But whenever the group are in their 'disguise' the film goes camp, and almost turns into another genre movie, and the scene between Reed and Thompson should have been a turning point for the movie, but it turns out like a smutty joke from a below par carry on movie.It's a bizarre piece for sure, bookended by George Kennedy in a hotel room.It should have been a blast, but instead, it's just a little bit boring, with a good stunt at the end.

A fashion photographer (Brian Thompson) and seven models travel to a South American island fortress, ostensibly to do a fashion shoot. In reality, the photographer is a mercenary and their job is to free an imprisoned rebel leader. The director describes it as "Magnificent Seven" with women.This is really the height of 1990s cheese. It has the sensibility of a 1980s action film, and that is not surprisingly since it was probably filmed in 1989. All the excess and over-the-top things you expect. Brian Thompson may not be Stallone or Schwarzenegger, but he knows what to do in this sort of role. Is he a cheesy actor? Very much... his delivery of lines is pretty rough. Apparently, he was the director's son-in-law at the time, possibly explaining his casting.Oliver Reed appears, and it has been a few years since he was the big star of "The Brood" or "Curse of the Werewolf" (among his many other achievements). The most notable thing about his role in this film is a very big mustache that makes him almost unrecognizable. The director freely describes him as a "hostile drunk" who abused his wife; he was gentle when sober, but he was rarely sober. Thompson concurs saying, "I never saw Oliver Reed sober."Besides the excellent 2K restoration, the Arrow Video release includes audio commentary with editor Barry Zetlin (who has a very impressive resume of horror and cult films and talks at length about his career), and brand new interviews with director Nico Mastorakis and star Brian Thompson.

There's plenty of eye-candy here (though Mastorakis had the brilliant idea to kill off the gorgeous babe Barbara Lee Alexander halfway through), and Brian Thomson gives a funny performance, playing the usual "macho" stereotype and spoofing it at the same time. As an action movie, however, "Hired to Kill" is unpretentious but absurd: there is no real action until the last 30 minutes...then there is one of those "Commando"-type endings where the inept bad guys are essentially just stunt men waiting for their cue to "die". The plot is totally anachronistic - brave commandos (preferably American) rescuing a revolutionary leader and overthrowing the local dictator of some banana republic - but the funny part is that, because the film was shot in Corfu, Greece, it was impossible to set it in the usual unnamed Latin American banana republic, so Mastorakis created a fictional Mediterranean country named Cypra (!!!). Hmmm, I wonder which real country's name he was trying oh-so-subtly to avoid...By the way, is this the official low point of Oliver Reed's career? (probably not) (*1/2)