As the movie begins with kids being trained to be assassins from some kind of lab setting, while having barcodes tattooed into the backs of their necks, it’s clear the backstory to Hitman bears a striking resemblance to the TV series Dark Angel starring Jessica Alba.
Timothy Olyphant does a good job as the star of this simplified James Bond style movie – he has vibes of Michael Weatherly going on – they’re practically twins. Olyphant plays a highly skilled assassin called Agent 47 who has successfully evaded capture by police for a long time.
Olga Kurylenko does pretty well as the lead female in this movie. This was her breakthrough movie, before going on to take starring and supporting roles in many more exciting action movies, such as The Assassin Next Door (2009), Erased (2012), Oblivion (2013, with Tom Cruise), The November Man (2014, with Pierce Brosnan), Momentum (2015), Gun Shy (2017, with Antonio Banderas), Johnny English Strikes Again (2018, with Rowan Atkinson), The Courier (2019), High Heat (2022), Extraction 2 (2023, with Chris Hemsworth). Trying not to mention Quantum of Solace, as I can’t stand Daniel Craig trying to be James Bond – nevertheless Olga Kurylenko was in Quantum of Solace (2008) just one year after Hitman.
Timothy Olyphant, on the other hand, kind of disappeared, starring in no other major action movies after The Hitman, although he did take a minor supporting role in the Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian.
Robert Knepper (from Transporter 3) puts in a strong performance as the chief FSB (Russian secret police) agent in the movie. Dougray Scott also gives a strong performance as the Interpol agent who’s been tracking the assassin, Agent 47, around the world for a long time. That’s all the major cast members worth mentioning.
Overall, Hitman (2007) is a bit simplistic compared to a good James Bond movie, but it zeroes in on a certain style very similar to The Transporter or The Equalizer, and does it equally well. With a slightly stronger plot, and a slightly slicker and less suspenseful back end, it could be even better, although they all suffer from this same issue.