With all the controversy
fresh in mind regarding the notion of female driven action thrillers, notably
surrounding the release of Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters, it’s curious to find a low budget straight to video
action thriller about a band of undercover female assassins who do everything
the internet wanted Feig’s film to do over twenty years earlier. Helmed by Island
of Death and The Zero Boys cult
Greek director Nico Mastorakis, the 1990 military rescue mission thriller Hired to Kill manages to give character
actor Brian Thompson (the punk who gets his stomach punched through in The Terminator as well as the son-in-law
of the director) a leading role for a change as an action hero, Oliver Reed a
place to continue drinking as the stereotypical villain and its cast of female
characters action roles with camaraderie, death defying stunt work and their
own set of unique personalities. It’s a
pretty cut and dried undercover rescue flick about an assassin who is asked to
go undercover as a gay fashion designer with his posse of hot models who are
actually expertly trained assassins.
Somewhere between Commando and
the Chuck Norris Cannon Films, Hired to
Kill makes no bones about what kind of flick this is. While ostensibly a B grade action flick whose
leading man is decidedly one note with a premise potentially offensive to
politically correct sensibilities, this low budget action romp sadly died a
quiet death with the very real helicopter related tragedy on set before fading
into VHS rental obscurity. Only now
thanks to Arrow Video’s recently released blu-ray edition can all the estrogen
packed action and startlingly death defying (and causing) stunt work be seen in
all of its home video glory.
For the most part Hired to Kill looks, sounds and feels
like Commando’s bastard child with
some outrageous dialogue, cornball villains including Oliver Reed’s alcohol
drenched performance. Made in an era
where Reed had trouble finding work due to his hellraising ways, according to
director Mastorakis in a retrospective interview, the actor responded to
Mastorakis’ demands in a climactic action scene by publicly urinating on the
set. The film also includes
overqualified stars George Kennedy and Jose Ferrer but they mostly take a
backseat to the cast of femme fatales hired by Thompson who make up a dangerous
gang of angry cats ready to claw each other up at the drop of a hat. Modern viewers may be put off by Thompson’s
goof on the gay stereotype but he sells it pretty well including catching Reed
off guard with a kiss on the lips.
Still, the action stunts and pyrotechnic effects are much bigger than
you would expect from straight to video fodder and the characters surprisingly
resonate with action heroines who step up to the plate and go to war. Watching Hired
to Kill, I was taken aback by just how many nerve wracking helicopter
stunts there are in this, including a couple of shots where one of the actors
hangs from beneath the chopper with the ocean clearly below his feet. Watching the extras I was horrified to learn
(and see actual footage) of the on-set helicopter accident which claimed the
life of stunt man Clint C. Carpenter and I have to wonder how many more years
of helicopter accident related deaths post-Twilight
Zone: The Movie needed to happen before ceasing the practice of using real
helicopters on film sets altogether.
Without spoiling anything, Hired
to Kill ends somewhat abruptly but upon learning the cast and crew was
grieving over the recent on-set tragedy, it’s a miracle they finished the film
at all.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki