It feels like whole parts of Interview with a Hitman are missing. A major supporting character will be revealed in the present action, grown up from a little kid in one scene in the flashback. There’s probably a good ten minutes of exposition missing from the picture.

It might explain why, when it’s not full of bad dialogue, Hitman is such a beautifully made film. Director Bhandal can’t write dialogue whatsoever (he also doesn’t even know when he’s got half a good scene–he just goes on and runs it with more talking), but the plot sometimes feels like After Hours with a hitman. Great music from Dan Teicher, just phenomenal. Hitman works best when there’s no talking, just Teicher’s music, Ben King and Harry Skipp’s sublime editing and Richard Swingle’s lovely photography. It’s like Bhandal realized, in post, he couldn’t tell his story straightforward because of the writing and acting fails, so he let it at least partially succeed through exceptional work from his crew.

Luke Goss plays the lead as an adult and he’s middling. He’s good when he doesn’t have any lines. He’s particularly bad during the terribly written narration. Still, he’s leagues ahead of Elliot Greene, who plays the same character as a child. Greene’s terrible.

Caroline Tillette’s good as Goss’s love interest, Danny Midwinter’s all right, Philip Whitchurch is good.

The obvious finish fails some of the actors’ good work and there’s a lot terrible about it. But there’s a lot good about Hitman too.

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CREDITS

Written and directed by Perry Bhandal; director of photography, Richard Swingle; edited by Harry Skipp and Ben King; music by Ben Teicher; production designer, Mickaela Trodden; produced by Dean Fisher; released by Kaleidoscope Film Distribution.

Starring Luke Goss (Viktor), Caroline Tillette (Bethesda), Stephen Marcus (Traffikant), Danny Midwinter (Sergei), Philip Whitchurch (Tosca), Patrick Lyster (Xavier), Ray Panthaki (Franco), Uriel Emil Pollack (Alexandru) and Elliot Greene (Young Viktor).