iTunes Exclusive Episode Hitman Agent 47

The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
Greetings, Empire member and our members.
If you are hearing my voice, it means the following conditions have been met.
At least once in your life, you have listened to the Clubhouse podcast live every Sunday,
night, eight Eastern, five Pacific, or seven Eastern, four Pacific, heading on the day.
It also means you subscribe to the show on iTunes because it is time for another right.
Tunes exclusive.
The 128th time we've done this.
Welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast.
And I am a hit maker, baby.
These sets with the kids are saying these days with the clothes in the hair.
But I am not alone for this particular episode across the desk from me as he tends to be.
Is my co-host.
And a man is going to have a lot of video games talk to do in this particular episode.
He is chatting.
Yes, I am.
Thank you, sir.
Also join me across the desk as he tends to do from time to time.
He is the ginger ninja.
And a man who is not afraid to wear a black suit in a red tie because it matches his beard.
He is the king of bowling.
He is Andrew Beckham.
Thank you.
Great to be here.
And I will double up on that video game.
Where it up?
Also joining this is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man who will put a sharp shooter on you to let him.
You may know him as fun, don, go.
But as a mom and name of Don Ford, I am going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome, sir.
I never thought we would start an iTunes exclusive with a hitman.
I can't be predicted.
But it was good.
Whenever we do one of these, it is to review something and today is no different.
Today, we are here to review the brand new film from first-time feature director Alexander Bucker.
And you know why he is extreme because he smells like the case.
It is a hitman agent 47 starring Rupert friend in the title role.
If you want to call it that, here is the basis of the story.
Based on the video game franchise, how many are there?
Two or three now?
Oh, there is more than that.
Is there a ton of them?
Six or seven of them, right?
Okay.
Based on the hitman franchise of video games, Rupert friend plays Agent 47,
who is tasked to take down some people.
I am not going to tell you, we are not going to give away who the targets are.
But involved in this is a very young man.
I do apologize.
I totally just lost my train of thought there.
Hannah Ware plays Katia.
She is a young lady who has these visions.
She doesn't quite understand what they are.
But she knows that she is hunting down a man who may have answers for her.
She winds up at a crossfire between two, basically, warring.
I don't even call him factions, I guess.
One is the, what they call a syndicate.
Who is wanting to unlock the secrets of the Hitman Agent program, which has been disembanded.
So they can make their own.
And the actual people who are left that are being hunted.
Man, it's puns deep as I want to go down the rabbit.
Because I don't want to spoil too much for this.
Before we get in, we got to take our best friends.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
I want you to take a deep breath.
You sure you want to start with me with this one?
You better believe I do.
Let's first of all.
Let's, before we get into the meat and potatoes of what this will turn into.
Let's talk about the visual style of the film.
Before we start an at, there's four official series.
Oh, four video games?
Yeah, four official series on the Hitman.
I think there's six total.
Yeah.
This is the, there, there can's down there.
Might be some downloadable ones that were like offshoots.
Yes.
Assassin's Creed is really good.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh.
From a visual standpoint.
Before again, before the mean potatoes.
What do you think about the, the feel of the film?
As a film.
Uh-huh.
It felt fine.
Okay.
Let's, let's keep it within the contract.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, considering that this guy had done exclusively commercials,
or had he done some music videos.
I think there's some music videos too.
And more and more directors are kind of coming out of that mold that are directing films
of this type.
I mean, you've got your Michael Bayes.
You've got your David Finchers.
Uh, you've got your Michelle Gondries or Michael Gondry.
Have you want to pronounce it?
It means Michelle.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
You've got Spike Jones.
Now, Spike Jones really has no action film.
But that's where a lot of, a lot of, a lot of,
of these new directors have kind of cut their teeth.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
And, you know, they, they put some serviceable work out there.
Uh-huh.
Oscar winning work.
By a lot of these, you know, a lot of,
and the, and the screenwriter of this is the same, one of the screenwriters anyway.
Did the screenplay for the first hit, man.
Uh-huh.
I mean, that came out in 2007 with Timothy.
Oh, if a skip would.
He is.
He's also producer.
He's also co-producer of this thing.
I think visually, I thought it was great.
You know, to me, this is, this is your,
your definition of a summer movie.
Right.
Leave your brain at the door.
Stuff's going to explode.
People are going to get beat up.
If you enjoy the first GI Joe, you'll probably like this.
Or I'd be, see, I also equate it kind of like to take it.
Yeah.
Just sit on, put your seat belt on.
Make sure your tray tables and it's up right position in here.
We go.
Andrew.
I'll go along with that.
As far as a film.
It, it float well.
It kept me engaged.
Did there was no, there was no, there was no, there was.
Yeah.
I was always engaged.
Didn't, you know.
But one of the things I really dug about it was,
a lot of times, you have to find that balance of how long you're going to tell story,
and how long you're going to do action.
There were times when they did the same time.
Yeah.
Which I thought was cool.
We can advance the story while stuff's exploding.
Right.
Done.
If you go to my written review at the clubhouse podcast.com,
that is our website.
I put on there, which was the last thing I talked about,
because it blew me away,
was a couple scenes that they did of Singaport Night.
Singaport, because it's great.
But yeah, that one with the hotel and those little tents.
That blew me away.
You know how I feel about like scenes and looks of films.
So I really liked how they had to look of like,
double in certain areas of the town and everything.
So I thought they used the cities,
and they went around the world on this thing.
There's Germany, Austria, China.
There's a whole rare place.
But they really, really utilize the cities
and the buildings and all that very, very well I thought.
I do have to say one thing that there was a plot hall for me on.
If you know you're being hunted,
do you get the hotel room with the big picture window in it?
That's all I'm saying.
Yeah, I'm going to leave that where it is.
But on the bottom, I really like you.
I thought it flowed well.
It wasn't dragging at one point,
or they didn't put all the action in the beginning
and everything.
The action flowed through very, very well.
Be warned.
This thing is 94 minutes long.
So we're out there.
And unlike some films that were not good in name,
that's before.
That 94 minutes is utilized well.
Because I was worried as we were getting closer to that,
that 75 minute mark.
I was like,
how was this going to go?
Are we sitting through this again?
But they wrapped it up nicely.
Now, they could have used a little bit more time,
but I didn't feel that it was mandatory for them to have more time.
That makes any sense.
And the ending didn't feel rushed either.
It didn't.
There was one little thing that they type real quickly at the end,
which I thought was weird.
But from what I've read in Chad,
you might have to verify this for me.
The scene where someone's introduced that you go,
okay, so that happened.
That's directly out of the video game, too.
Where the rubber deck he was?
Oh, oh, oh.
Because if you look at the first film,
apparently that scene was used in the first film,
and they say that's directly out of the video game.
There is a rubber duck reference in the first one.
Okay.
Okay.
You remember that, Andrew?
Yeah.
From a performance standpoint,
I thought Rupert Friend was good.
I never, I mean,
and I have a rudimentary knowledge of the video game franchise.
I watch TV.
I see commercials.
I caught, and you're,
of the Chad May have been a little surprised.
In the very beginning,
there's an homage to the cover of the first game.
And I caught it.
And I was like, is that what it is?
He's like, oh, yeah.
Well, blazer.
I pay attention.
I watch TV.
But from that standpoint,
I thought Rupert Friend was more in tune with the character
than I have seen of Timothy all the fan.
Now, I have not seen the first film,
but I didn't get that vibe from him.
I got the more vibe from what I know of the game from Rupert Friend's particular portrayal.
I don't have the, like, Greek red,
especially when it comes to video games.
Because last thing I had was the Sega Genesis.
I just never got into the Xbox.
I don't remember that.
So I don't really know the real characters too well,
but I thought Friend did incredible,
because he seemed like he was human,
but he was at a motionless machine.
And so well, I thought.
Well, here's not, I don't really know the characters coming in here.
And here's the thing on that, though.
And you say that.
But something that Chad references in his written review,
which is at www.theclothhousepodcast.com,
which is our website.
From what I know of the game,
my only issue with Friend's portrayal,
and I agree with you on this.
From what I know of the game,
he's, he's heartless, he's emotionless.
It's stone-faced a whole time.
He had a motion in this,
which was a little weird for me.
But I still liked the performance.
I thought he was good.
I thought he was a great,
but I thought,
not knowing anything about the game.
He wasn't pure machine,
but he,
because he's still human.
Right.
Yeah, he said he wasn't like,
I'm a Mr. Machine now.
It had that little mix of ball three.
But it's the Terminator meets James Bond.
Yeah, that's very much.
Very well.
Yeah.
And that's how I framed it.
You know?
And I really,
I thought his performance was great.
Visually, he's got the look of Agent 47.
Right.
Nailed down.
He's the spinning image of the video game character
that I've seen in recent,
because there's another version coming out in December.
The sixth,
there is, this will be the sixth.
Hitman coming out in December.
Okay.
I thought Quinto do,
he displayed it.
And we have to mention the great Zach Quinto,
or where, you know,
how they did.
But I really thought that he reminded me of that,
that character from heroes where it's just,
silent.
Yeah.
He's just Mr.
Seems sweet,
but he could be ruthless.
I thought.
Kind of nice waiting for chat.
You're welcome, Internet.
Hannah,
where you would know from the series,
betrayal, boss on stars.
She also was the Russian lawyers wife and cop out,
we can somehow wedge a Kevin Smith reference into this.
We'll try.
We can do it.
We'll do it.
Yeah.
But to me, Zach Quinto was that Quinto.
Like, he's just, he's that guy.
Like, when he plays Spock,
I'm totally in on that.
But everything else, he's that Quinto.
To me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and so, and there's something wrong with that,
because I think he's a great actor,
and I mean, huge fan.
But all I saw was Zach Quinto.
All I saw was Zach Quinto.
All I saw was Tyler.
Yeah.
I started to get to that.
You know what you expect from him.
Yeah, and he was good.
Yeah.
He wasn't good.
Yeah.
He was great.
You also have an appearance by the great.
I'm going to screw this guy.
Here in, here in Hines,
who I am a huge fan of is in this.
And when they reveal them, I was like,
there he is.
I got who's got a video game,
movie credit to his resume or two.
I know he was in the last Tomb Raider film.
And I think I am more about three words.
Well, yeah, but I'm throwing it away.
If we're talking about a movie based on a video game,
he's done this before,
as has Cretchman,
who plays Leclerc in this thing.
Yes.
But again, I want to,
there was any performances that were bad in it.
I think there were some,
I think they're hoping to get a sequel out of it,
which I think they may.
But,
there wasn't anything from a performance standpoint
that made me like cringe.
There was some stuff where I wanted to go,
you know,
what about this other thing that you were talking about earlier
and you didn't do anything with.
And I think that's why they're hoping for,
they're hoping to get a sequel,
basically so you can see more of it.
You think there will be a sequel?
What's your guy's gonna do?
I think it's gonna depend on how well it does.
I don't even say this weekend.
I think overall,
it's 35 million dollar budget.
So it doesn't have some real far to go to get money back.
Now,
let's get to why you called.
And Chad, I'm gonna hand it over to you.
Because see for me,
again,
enough to be dangerous.
I really enjoyed this film.
I couldn't pick it apart,
because I'm not need deep in the,
the game franchise.
Right.
Where has you,
are our resident video game person?
I actually,
So I will defer to you.
I actually played Hitman Absolution
for about four hours yesterday.
Just re-acquainting myself.
Oh, did you really with the,
with the gaming franchise?
Yeah, I've been a fan of it for a while.
Um,
my main issue with this.
And this is clearly coming from a person who,
will always trump at the,
stick to your source material.
And someone who me who won't know,
I'll be the exact opposite of it.
Oh, that's why we're gonna let him do this first.
Exactly.
And Andrew, you may or may not be enjoying it.
Back me up on this.
Agent 47 is a single solitary force.
He gets in.
He does his job.
He gets out.
And if, if anyone knew he was there,
you basically in the game fail the level.
You know.
You know.
And it's always,
almost always.
I can't say exclusively,
but almost always under the cover of night in the dark.
And he primarily works alone.
Constantly sleeping in and out of disguise.
Very much in a Batman type world.
And a, in a, in a film noir type environment.
It, like, I know when you play absolute,
and it feels like you're watching Blade Runner.
Yes.
It's very, very dark.
It feels like, Arkham.
Yes.
It feels like the, the, the, the rock stadium Arkham series that,
that has given Batman video game credibility again.
And when you see the fighting scenes and the,
and the, and the gun fights in this thing.
It's almost like a war zone.
Yeah.
And granted,
maybe the action calls for that.
But if you're going to base this thing off of hitman,
you're kind of going way too far in the other direction.
So you thought there were too many liberties taken from the game friends.
Way too many liberties taken.
Now granted from the casual observer,
like you two guys don't.
Especially me.
I wouldn't even know this.
Right.
You know, it wouldn't bother you.
Exactly.
But for someone who is a fan of the, of the, of the games.
I'm like, this isn't really what the game is about.
Yeah.
I mean granted you have a guy in here named Agent 47.
And the other problem that I had was it,
it seemed like they made it more about Katia than they made it about him.
They did.
Which is a fair point.
You know, I'm like, this thing is called Agent 47.
It's not called the Katia Chronicles.
Right.
And again,
I'm just being,
You're, you're, you're, you're, you're on the,
from the game, from the gamer standpoint.
If you're going to call the thing,
if you're going to, if the title character is going to be,
Agent 47,
you need to focus on Agent 47.
And, and portray him the way he's portrayed.
Otherwise,
I feel like it's kind of doing the fans of the game.
There are probably going to be your core audience for this thing,
that are would be the ones to come out and drove to support it.
Are going to walk away going,
Has anyone even played this game that worked on this film?
Andrew.
Yeah.
One thing, two things that really bothered me was you didn't get to see
enough of how he actually thinks the hit through.
Right.
The contract through.
You, you get a,
You've got to be more familiar than you got from him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got a brief introduction at the very beginning,
you know, just really pull you into the movie.
But then after that, nothing.
Yeah.
And then the sequence with anybody that loves hitman,
they love the dual silver ballers.
Yes.
And, and there just wasn't enough of it.
And then when, when it finally came out,
it was gone within two and a half seconds.
Yeah.
That's like watching an Indiana Jones film,
and he never uses his whip.
Yeah.
But, can I put a comparison?
It's like if they didn't move me,
they stopped Donkey Kong.
Instead of barrels rolling down,
it would be like basketballs.
And you got a dolphin up on top in seven eight
is that what.
You know what, you know what, you know,
it was a really good one.
I would consider a really good comparison.
And Kretchman was in this one too,
was wanted
and see again,
I still haven't read the source,
but you know,
and I know they made a lot of changes from a graphic book.
Oh, my God.
That that movie got so far away from the source.
It wasn't even,
It was in a different universe.
It was thought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
got for small favors. Now and again let me stress that this may not
detract from your enjoyment of this film. And that was going to be my next question.
Is did it? Did it pull you out of it? Yes. It pulled me out of it. Okay.
Because I'm I'm I'm such a fan of that of that game's Andrew. It pulled me out
but I realized that I'm there for the film. I'm there to see how many people
because you've got to admit and now they got that spot. But you got to admit
that there was at least one moment in this film where you went. We got to
warn the Empire. There was some real thing. It's right there for a reason. Exactly.
And and he does stuff like that in the game and I bought them for that.
Vio went to the film was cool. Yeah. Like there were some cool kills in
this thing. You know, car chase. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. You know, there
was never seen a game series as a car chase. But again, for me that that was just
I was there to leave my brain at the door and watch stuff that's
blown and watch dudes beat up other dudes. I was okay with it. Well, okay, Andrew,
since you've seen the original one with Olafan. In my opinion, I feel like
Rupert friend may look more like Agent 47, but it seemed to me that
Olafan kind of figured out what made Agent 47 click. He really did. And if you like
Olafan's walk as it's just spot on that deliberate just throughout the move. He's like a
shark. Yes. You know, I'm a fan of the Olafan. Yeah. And I think you'll like the original.
I really think you would like to sit down and watch it at some point. But okay, fair enough,
is there anything we want to add before we get to the final analysis? The cursing was
unnecessary. I will agree with you there. Yeah. Look, there was some there was some
language in there that I thought was really is how we're going to do this. Yeah. That's
that's, but that's the crowd. You're you're marketing too. So believe me,
the language in the games is harder than that. Oh, really. Oh, God. Have you played blood
money? No, absolute was the last one. Okay, he's like he's walking up and he's walking
up to a gate and then this is from the game. And the guys that are at the gate, they're like
trying to, that he's trying to get into, they're like, what's your name? You know, what's your
name, but he's like names are for friends. I was just waiting for that in the move. That tells
you the type of person he is. He's cold. He's cold, but he's he's quick. He's he's he's got
some wit to him. And that's another thing that I just don't think Rupert, friend, had. He just
didn't have that wit to him, whereas all the fan did. Yeah. Would you want to see a sequel? Yeah,
if it really. Wow. You're welcoming. I don't even know where. You completely shot my wheels up
with that. I would like to see it to see if maybe they can curb it back around. I mean,
God knows they left it wide open. I thought the way it ended was cool. Yeah. You know,
it was cool. I don't know that I needed the extra scene in the credits, but yeah, you know,
it is what it is. Well, it left it open. Yeah, but it was already open before that. Yeah. So,
all right, where he gets the final analysis? Yes. The way we do the final analysis on this show,
we don't give you thumbs-up thumbs down, but don't give you stars, letter grades, one to 10.
Our audience who we affectionately refer to as the empire is better than that.
It's a two-prong question. Question number one, is would you see this film again?
The answer's no then we're done here. The answer's yes. Then it becomes how far you
will you go to see game? Would you pay for price? I don't know that there's a 3D option for this.
I don't think there is. I was nervous. Would you see it at a Twilight show? Would you wait for it
in a matinee? Would you go early morning on a Saturday? Would you wait until second run?
Would you make the effort to go to Red Box and run it? Would you stream it on Netflix? Or
would you just wait for it on cable? Chad, let's start with you. Would you see this film again?
Probably. Okay. How far are you willing to go? Not very. Well, it's a fine not fair.
Not very. I mean, you know, I'd watch it if it was on cable. Okay. Andrew, would you see this film again?
Yes, I will. How far are you willing to go? The $4 bin at price, whenever the blue ray hits
there. Fair enough. Do I want to see this again? I'm going to kind of go the opposite with
these guys because, you know, it's no Greek red and all that. I really enjoyed it and I
don't know how much a berry from the games and stuff. So actually, I would see again an
ad recommended as a Twilight. I would see this again, but I don't know how far out of my way I would
go to do it. I think I, I think it's a good rental. But I think, again, we've talked about this before.
I don't know that I'd run it from Red Box. I'd want to rent get an actual retail copy to rent.
So I could see what extras are on. Like movie trading company. Like a movie trading company kind of
a deal where you can just rent when it comes out for five days for five bucks or something.
And just kind of dissect the disc a little bit because it was a lot of fun. Yeah. It's again,
leave your brain at the door and just have fun with it. And again, we got to think our best friends
ally, Josh, everybody there, things again for finance to this thing. I always agree to marketing
you guys are awesome. Awesome. All right, gentlemen, let's do the plugs. Visit our website,
the aforementioned www.theclubhousepodcast.com. Find out everything you need to know and some
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She's been on a little holiday this week. It's a friend. He's been on a furlough. Our normal show
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