Blu-ray Review: Stephen Frears’s The Hit on the Criterion Collection

The Hit is an enigmatic, existential fable about crime and punishment.

The HitAn unconventional British gangster film from director Stephen Frears, The Hit largely avoids the usual trappings of the genre—in particular, the penchant for ultraviolence on display in roughly contemporary films like The Krays—opting instead for a thoughtful, even philosophical, character study. For one thing, mob informer Willie Parker (Terence Stamp), actually reads. For another, he attempts to live his life according to the implications and complications suggested by these books. Not only that, but his books serve as plot points both major, providing the existential and metaphysical themes that crop up later in the film, and minor, as in his extensive collection of books, which come in handy as projectiles in an early scene where a gang of youths attempt to abduct him. Talk about your Foucauldian “power-knowledge.”

Employing a series of sinuous mobile crane and tracking shots, often combined with wide-angle lenses for some fashionable distortion, the film’s prologue, set in the early 1970s, succinctly lays out the requisite backstory: From his safe house, we follow informer Parker into the courtroom, where his testimony against leading mob bosses clinches his subsequent fate. Then, out of nowhere, the accused gangsters break out into an impromptu rendition of “We’ll Meet Again,” a moment that surreally blends menace and mirth.

The film then flashes forward 10 years, shifting location to a remote, desolate Spanish village. Parker is captured and handed over to two British hit men, who constitute your somewhat stereotypically mismatched pair: experienced, hardened killer Braddock (John Hurt) and overeager tyro Myron (Tim Roth). At one point, Braddock uses a photo of Stamp taken from his role in Poor Cow for the purposes of identification, leading Frears to joke in the commentary included on this disc that he’d got there years before Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey.

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A battle of wills and wits ensues: Parker attempts to play the hit men off one another, suggesting to Braddock that Myron’s inexperience makes him unreliable and then planting the notion with Myron that Braddock is losing his nerve. All the while, a young Spanish woman (Laura del Sol), taken hostage along the way, simply tries to stay alive. As the foursome make their way toward a rendezvous in Paris, both Braddock and Myron have occasion to inquire after Parker’s apparent lack of concern over his inevitable fate. He replies that he’s had plenty of time to ponder and claims to have eventually reached a sense of acceptance. This existential quietude comes, at least in part, from his extensive reading. An earlier scene showed him acquiring a book that, judging from its Spanish title, might well be a copy of Italian poet and novelist Cesare Pavese’s diary The Business of Living. Pavese, who committed suicide in 1950, emphasized throughout his writings man’s inherent isolation and alienation, and frequently treated the motif of betrayal—themes that are just as germane to Frears’s film.

As the characters near the French border, Parker recounts the legend of Roland and Olivier making their suicidal stand against the Saracens during the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees, which they are just then traversing. The chivalrous Roland represents a code of honor and conduct that stands in pointed contrast to the actions and activities of the British gangsters. The film’s central scene, a terse confrontation between Braddock and Parker, takes place in a forest at night. (Scenes late in the film provide in juxtaposition a verdant, fecund nature against the scorched and arid desert of earlier ones.) The ineluctable topic is death. Parker opines: “It’s just a moment. We’re here. Then we’re not here. We’re somewhere else…maybe. And it’s as natural as breathing. Why should we be scared?”

Is it all a ruse? Does Parker, in fact, harbor some grand scheme for liberation? The film’s conclusion suggests that Parker has attained his hard-won resignation only by envisioning a timeline. When his death is still remote, set for a certain day, and expected to come in a certain manner, he remains calm. But when things change, he breaks down. Calm and philosophical restraint go out the window, so to speak. The desperate, craven urge to live overwhelms, and it’s a shock to the characters, just as much as it to the audience.

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In the The Hit’s memorable final scene, Braddock attempts to cross the border into France disguised as a backpacker. But Spanish police, who we’ve seen previously dogging the gangsters’ trail, intervene and corner him in a lamp store, chasing him down amid a myriad light fixtures. The resultant contrast between abundant light and incipient darkness, as Braddock faces his own certain demise, makes for a truly compelling final flourish.

Image/Sound

The Criterion Collection’s 2K restoration looks terrific, a serious step up from their already pretty solid 2009 DVD release, which went out of print years ago. Colors are brighter and more deeply saturated, which especially pays off in later scenes set among the verdant wilderness. Grain levels are well-managed and flesh tones lifelike. The LPCM mono track is clean and clear, nicely conveying composer Paco de Lucia’s surprisingly menacing flamenco score, not to mention the clangorous title theme from Eric Clapton.

Extras

Criterion ports over the slim-pickings bonus materials from their earlier DVD release. The commentary track is an expertly blended mosaic of input from director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Peter Prince (playing off each other nicely), editor Mick Audsley, and actors Tim Roth and the late, lamented John Hurt (all of whom fly solo). It’s an eminently worthwhile track that covers a lot of ground, from the philosophy of shot selection and film editing to a near-death experience when Tim Roth (who couldn’t drive) decided to test his skills with Hurt and Terence Stamp in the backseat. There’s a 1988 episode of TV series Parkinson One to One featuring Stamp, who discusses his working-class Cockney roots, finding fame, becoming the face of 1960s Swinging London, and trying to put the moves on Rita Hayworth. Stamp comes across as a funny, introspective sort, and it’s a delightful 37 minutes. Finally, there’s a foldout booklet with an essay from Graham Fuller, who contextualizes The Hit as a British gangster film, a road movie, and a philosophical character study.

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Overall

Stephen Frears’s The Hit, which receives a fine 2K upgrade but no new bonus materials from Criterion, is an enigmatic, existential fable about crime and punishment.

Score: 
 Cast: John Hurt, Tim Roth, Laura del Sol, Terence Stamp, Bill Hunter, Fernando Rey, Jim Broadbent  Director: Stephen Frears  Screenwriter: Peter Prince  Distributor: The Criterion Collection  Running Time: 98 min  Rating: R  Year: 1984  Release Date: October 20, 2020  Buy: Video

Budd Wilkins

Budd Wilkins's writing has appeared in Film Journal International and Video Watchdog. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

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