Director: Mark Newton
MPAA Rating: NR
Run Time: 96 min.
Mark Newton’s action-comedy Hit Team is one of the most profoundly annoying films I’ve had the displeasure of witnessing this year. The film captures all of the over-acting and stupidity of a Troma movie, minus the copious amounts of gore. The plot is serviceable and the cinematography is fairly well done, but the deplorable script and performances bring it down to an almost unwatchable level.
Myles McLane plays Max, an imbecilic hitman attempting to portray the most annoying man in the world through his sexist remarks and near constant screeching. Hit partner, Ruthie, played by Emerald Robinson, is a no-nonsense badass, who – while certainly more tolerable to watch – falls victim to all the terrible dialogue and idiotic scenarios transpiring around her.
Max and Ruthie are hired by a mobster to kill six people in a day, but after screwing it up, they become targets themselves. Now, in addition to fleeing the mob, they must also avoid getting caught by two stupid cops who are also on their tail.
Every character in this movie seems to have the mental capacity of a learning-disabled 8-year-old with ADHD set loose in a Chuck E. Cheese. The film moves at a frantic pace with everyone constantly making noises out of their word holes, be it an annoying laugh, an annoying grunt, a fart noise, or just a random scream. (Imagine Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber deliver the most annoying sound in the world and compound that into and hour and a half.) To exacerbate this grating dialogue, the sound editing is poor, reminiscent of bad dubbing or ADR work that doesn’t really fit.
The comedic elements in Hit Team are dreadful at best, enjoyable only on a so-bad-it’s-good level. The jokes are the lowest of lowbrow and felt like something I’d see in a bad FMV game for Sega CD in the mid-nineties. In addition to being the world’s most annoying human being, Max is also an avid pervert, constantly trying to get into Ruthie’s pants. This dynamic gets old before it even begins and will quickly make you wish someone would just end his life so we don’t have to deal with him anymore.
Action-wise, Hit Team is generic and bland, opting for After Effects-laden CG special effects that look like something straight out of Birdemic. The cinematography is really the only element that feels competently executed in this movie.
If Hit Team was ironically trying to tap into all the things that made straight-to-VHS Troma films bad in the ’80s, than maybe one could look at this as a success, but I doubt that was the goal. Regardless, it appears that director Mark Newton may have some raw talent and skills behind the camera, but the poor script, over-acted performances, and regrettable sound design prevented this from being anything more than a forgettable B movie.
