Main cast: Cuba Gooding Jr (Jonas Arbor), Cole Hauser (Allan Campbell), Jonathan LaPaglia (Detective Neil McKay), Ginny Weirick (Sydney Campbell), David Andriole (Detective Ray Lowery), Drew Waters (Mike Dodd), Sean Cook Sean (Brian Felzner), JP O’Shaughnessy (Lieutenant Ben Harp), Michael Papajohn (Agent Drake Ford), and Brandon O’Neill (Dom Estacado)
Director: William Kaufman
Allan Campbell is a pushover, and his tendency to bend over and take it hits him big time one day when he is passed over for a coveted promotion and discovers his wife in a pretty compromising situation with his supposed good friend Mike Dodd. He owes the local crime boss Dom Estacado money as well, money that he is hoping to be able to repay once he gets his dream promotion.
Meanwhile, super secret assassin Jonas Arbor learns that he is dying from a terminal illness. That realization drives him to go rogue and do whatever—killing the people he hates because why not, and hoping to die on his own term, in a blaze of glory.
These two meet that evening at a bar, and over drinks, Allan believes that Jonas is joking about being an assassin. Hence, when Jonas asks him to give him a hit list—five people that Allan wants to see killed—he writes down first the boss that denied him the promotion, then the douche canoe that got the post by screwing Allan over, Dom Estacado, Mike, and finally, his wife Sydney.
When Allan learns the morning that his boss was shot dead that night, he realizes that Jonas is not joking at all. Yikes, can he now stop Jonas before he kills the rest of the people on the hit list?
Meanwhile, Detective Neil McKay is starting to wonder about Allan’s involvement as the body count piles up…
The best thing about The Hit List, the only good thing actually, is Cuba Gooding Jr. I don’t know what happened to make him take so many awful roles throughout his career, but he is actually a solid action star, and here, he gets to do his thing with style and swagger. He kills with style, he looks super hot in the process, and he also has some good sarcastic zingers as well.
If there were to be any downside to his character in this one, it’s that he doesn’t show that beautiful behind of his and also no other character here is even half a match to Jonas’s awesomeness.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is kind of meh. Allan is awful as this sniveling and useless loser that doesn’t have any character growth at all–the guy is a loser and a whining, indecisive toss pot.
His wife… oh boy. She plays horrible games to hurt her husband because he is too busy working and doesn’t pay enough attention to her; instead of working things out with him, she does these mind games and ruin both her husband’s self esteem, or what little of it, and his friendship with his best friend. The only reason why Allan still wants her back is because he’s a spineless doormat.
Therefore, this show puts me in an odd position where I am actually rooting for Jonas, against the every-man character that I am supposed to relate to and root for. I can’t help thinking that this would have been a far better movie if Jonas had Detective McKay do the hit list for him instead, as that character is far more memorable in his far fewer scenes than Allan is in the entire movie.
Anyway, in the end arguably Jonas wins, as he gets to live what is left of his life on his own glorious terms while Allan will always be a whiny waste of flesh still shackled to a faithless, selfish, whiny wife.
So yes, watch this one for Cuba Gooding Jr doing the art of cool that still works when his pants stay firmly on, and try not to let the rest of this thing bring down the mood.
