The Big Hit (1998)

Directed by Che-Kirk Wong. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, China Chow, Christina Applegate, Bokeem Woodbine, Lainie Kazan, Elliott Gould, Avery Brooks, Sab Shimono, Robin Dunne, Lela Rochon, Antonio Sabato Jr., Danny Smith, David Usher. [R]

Fast-paced, self-satisfied, and supremely shallow action-comedy knocks off Hong Kong shoot-em-ups and Tarantino wannabes, and twists them into a knot of polished tastelessness. Wahlberg is a contract killer who’s so stressed out he chugs Maalox while dealing with a very complicated love life (comprising a fiancée, a mistress, and a teenage kidnap victim), plus a “gregarious” colleague/rival (Phillips) who’s anything but loyal or trustworthy. Stuffed to the gills with plot complications, but still razor-thin on narrative and character; whenever the absurd shootouts, car chases, and martial arts fights take a snooze, quirky “irony” and stereotypes take over, apparently under the belief that outrageousness is a good substitute for cleverness— character obsessions, for example, range from relentless self-pleasure to King Kong Lives. Energy is high but excitement runs pretty low; it may never be boring, but it is repetitive enough to numb after a while, and there are almost as many plot holes as bullet holes (this kind of genre exercise doesn’t need to be logical, but it has to at least make some kind of sense). Wesley Snipes and John Woo received co-producer and co-executive producer credits respectively.

45/100