The Hit (1984)

	Directed by: Stephen Frears	COUNTRY United Kingdom Genre Crime/Road NORWEGIAN TITLE Leiemorderen RUNNING TIME 98 minutes
	Produced by: Jeremy Thomas
	Written by: Peter Prince

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Willie Parker	Terence Stamp
Mitchell Braddock	John Hurt	½
Myron	Tim Roth	½
Maggie	Laura del Sol
Harry	Bill Hunter
Senior Policeman	Fernando Rey	-
Mr Corrigan	Lennie Peters	-
Judge	Willoughby Gray	-
Barrister	Jim Broadbent	-

Review

Terence Stamp is a force of positivity as a former criminal who snitched on his compatriots and started a new life in Spain before being tracked down ten years later by a sinister hitman (John Hurt) and his budding assistant (wonderfully played by Tim Roth in his first feature). This crime tale by Stephen Frears (later of Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters and High Fidelity) takes us on a road trip across Spain and serves as a wonderful time capsule of early 1980s Continental Europe – at the junction between provincial idiosyncrasy and modern consumerism. Our protagonists are all caught up in the mix between this and their own aimlessness. And although they have various ways of coping with their insecurities and needs for acceptance, they are all more or less prisoners of their own shortcomings. All except Laura del Sol as the group's young Spanish hostage Maggie, who slowly comes to realise she can manipulate the situation. The Hit has both style and substance, even if it never quite reaches the heights Frears may have hoped for. It's punctuated by pleasant flamenco music from Paco de Lucía and a title track by Eric Clapton and Roger Waters.