The first of two remakes of Mike Hodges' seminal 1971 British gangster movie Get Carter, Hit Man (1972) followed very close on the heels of the original; maximising payback on their own property, MGM put another film version of Ted Lewis' original novel into production just a year later, reworking the plot in a B-movie, Blaxploitation format. This adaptation features Bernie Casey in the Michael Caine role of an out-of-town mob enforcer (here called Tyrone Tackett) who travels to another city (in this case Los Angeles replaces Newcastle upon Tyne) to look into the circumstances of his brother's death, and becomes embroiled in a world of drugs, blackmail, and pornography.
Admittedly superior to the Sylvester Stallone abomination that followed in 2000, this still isn't a very good film. Directed by the sometime Hollywood workhorse George Armitage (Grosse Pointe Blank), it is certainly more explicit than the far superior original, with several very bloody scenes of violence (most notably the climactic invasion of the villain's mansion, originally a police raid but which here becomes a machine-gun massacre orchestrated by a rival group of thugs, and the ketchup sure does fly), whilst the sexual aspects are similarly amplified (though it must be stated that, in the porn star / hooker role, a frequently unclothed Pam Grier cuts an infinitely sexier figure than the pill-popping bike played by Geraldine Moffatt). Like most Blaxploitation films, it's quite chronically dated too, with Casey's 'power pimp' wardrobe particularly outrageous, and it is easy to see why it has been accused of excessive stereotyping by some critics. There are a couple of interesting pieces of innovation on the original's storyline (adding a note of ambiguity to the ending is a nice touch, and watch out for Die Hard's Paul Gleason as the assassin), whilst others just seem gratuitous (the method of Grier's exit seems to have been done purely for visceral effect); however, the theme song ("Hit Man, Hit Man, whatcha' gonna do 'bout the situation?") is absolutely dire, the tone is uncertain, the dog-fighting footage toward the start of the film is absolutely reprehensible, and the film's 'black power' pretensions finally irritate. For committed Blaxploitation aficionados only.
Admittedly superior to the Sylvester Stallone abomination that followed in 2000, this still isn't a very good film. Directed by the sometime Hollywood workhorse George Armitage (Grosse Pointe Blank), it is certainly more explicit than the far superior original, with several very bloody scenes of violence (most notably the climactic invasion of the villain's mansion, originally a police raid but which here becomes a machine-gun massacre orchestrated by a rival group of thugs, and the ketchup sure does fly), whilst the sexual aspects are similarly amplified (though it must be stated that, in the porn star / hooker role, a frequently unclothed Pam Grier cuts an infinitely sexier figure than the pill-popping bike played by Geraldine Moffatt). Like most Blaxploitation films, it's quite chronically dated too, with Casey's 'power pimp' wardrobe particularly outrageous, and it is easy to see why it has been accused of excessive stereotyping by some critics. There are a couple of interesting pieces of innovation on the original's storyline (adding a note of ambiguity to the ending is a nice touch, and watch out for Die Hard's Paul Gleason as the assassin), whilst others just seem gratuitous (the method of Grier's exit seems to have been done purely for visceral effect); however, the theme song ("Hit Man, Hit Man, whatcha' gonna do 'bout the situation?") is absolutely dire, the tone is uncertain, the dog-fighting footage toward the start of the film is absolutely reprehensible, and the film's 'black power' pretensions finally irritate. For committed Blaxploitation aficionados only.