Konterr Brilliant and touching

ShangLuda Admirable film.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Christopher Culver Very early in his career, the Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki established an aesthetic for his films in colour that has held for decades now: the characters are blue-collar people struggling to get by, and whatever emotions they feel, their lines of hatred, love, hope, or disappointment are communicated in an utterly deadpan, monotone fashion. The scenery is usually drab industrial buildings and rusting dockyards. Kaurismäki's 1990 film I HIRED A CONTRACT KILLER moves that formula, developed in his native Helsinki, to London. This is not the posh London of the royal family, bankers or socialites. Kaurismäki managed to find completely dilapidated locations that I would have never imagined to exist in London of that time (though no doubt they've long since been gentrified beyond recognition at this point).Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a timid Frenchman living in London with no apparent friends or surviving family, has worked for fifteen years for a state utility. When he is made redundant in a bit of Thatcher-era privatization, he feels he has nothing more to live for. He attempts suicide twice, both tries ending in morbidly humorous failure, and he lacks the courage to try any further. He decides to enter the East End criminal underworld and to hire a paid assassin to kill him. The mob boss takes Henri's money and tells him it will be done through a subcontractor. But when Henri meets the lovely Margaret (Margi Clarke) and starts coming out of his shell, he suddenly has second thoughts. Unable to call off the job, he and Margaret try to evade the hit-man (Kenneth Colley), already on Boulanger's trail.Kaurismäki's films are, to a large extent, dark comedies, and there are some laughs here. I also appreciated the element of homage to Kaurismäki's forebears and peers here. Colley's sad hit-man and the way the shots frame him was surely drawn from the crime capers that Jean-Pierre Melville shot in his last years. Kaurismäki's perennial love for drab scenery had been boosted by his newly established friendship with Jim Jarmusch, a director who presented America at this time as so many vacant lots and abandoned buildings.Still, I wouldn't consider this among Kaurismäki's best work. One of the things that makes Kaurismäki's main, Finnish-language output so hilarious is that the characters speak in literary Finnish (nearly a different language than colloquial Finnish). When the dialogue is in English and with a mix of UK accents, the formula is not quite as effective. Jean-Pierre Léaud's English is almost incomprehensible -- the actor has been a titan of French film since the New Wave of Truffaut and Godard, but he's not proficient enough in English to do English-language cinema. Kaurismäki no doubt wanted intended the character to sound that way, but it feels off for this viewer. I'd recommend this film only to those who have enjoyed a series of Kaurismäki's stronger films.

HANS The premise of this film is funny and odd: an employee of a British company loses his job, and because there is nothing to life for, he decides to end it right there. But all the attempts on his own life fail. Still determined, he decides to hire a contract killer - and have himself murdered.While waiting for the executioner in his apartment, he grows bored and decides to visit a bar across the street. There he indulges himself, for the first time, in hard liquor and cigarettes. As if this wouldn't be upsetting enough to his short remaining life span, he meets a flower girl with blood-red lips. Resolutely, he demands that she sits next to him, and inevitably falls in love. All over sudden, life isn't so despicable anymore - what to do? The contract killer is still on his heels...Kaurismäki takes this story as an occasion to revive his cinematic universe: people standing at a bar and slowly lifting a glass of beer, others sitting in front of worn-out wallpapers while smoking a cigarette. The camera lingers as if those quiet moments were a subtle study of humans on the fringes of society. They are connected through the central theme of the film, but the main focus lies on Henri Boulanger, the former employee. Stoically and with a deadpan face, he undergoes the metamorphosis of his existence, subtly expressing his newfound hunger for life. Standing in a bar and listening to an unknown guitarist (Joe Strummer), he lifts his drink and takes a long gulp. From all we know, this is the equivalent of a spontaneous expression of joy in Finland. You are required to observe and listen quite carefully, but if you do, this very refrained way of celebrating the small pleasures of everyday life is not less powerful, especially against the background of Henri's rather meaningless existence. Kaursimäki doesn't need any loud effects or tearful scenes to convince us, he doesn't even need dialogue, of which there is very little in the film. He tells the story purely through the images and the strong, yet sparing expressions of his protagonists. The lighting of the scenes is somber and full of strong contrasts, giving the film it's own unique visual mark. I Hired a Contract Killer is like a slow burning fire that still provides warmth long after the big fireworks are spent.

redredred_13 Do you like classics? Do you have a thing for Hitchcock, or lets say, Jean Pierre Melville? Do you wanna see how does that translate into a more modern progressive movie? Well! here is what you do: You go straight to a club and you purchase 'I Hired a Contract Killer'! It sticks with you; the futility, the humor, and the suspense. This is a picture that no matter what, you gonna remember for ever. The futility is so rich, that itself becomes the core meaning to everything. And the situation gets so baffled that emptiness becomes a survival. The suspension is perfectly 'Hitchcokic'& the use of music is great. It is among the pictures that secures you; makes you sure that still cinema exists; A cinema that tells you a story, a breathtaking one - and damn, Kourismaki is a great story teller; a noble one. One of the few left from the true heritage of motion picture industry and art. Lay back, watch and enjoy. This is pure cinema. As you might have guessed, I fully recommend it!

johnny99-5 The premise is so stupid -- guy is such a failure that he can't even kill himself, so he hires a contract killer to do it for him.Then he falls in love and changes his mind.Really, I can't emphasise enough how bad this movie is. It's not "so bad it's good", it's so bad it's BAD. But I still remember it after all these years so it must have struck some sort of chord.P.S. Has Warren Beatty seen this movie? Because the same plot starts off Bulworth.