Hit! (USA, 1973) 134 min color DIR: Sidney J. Furie. PROD: Harry Korshak. SCR: Alan Trustman, David M. Wolf. MUSIC: Lalo Schifrin. DOP: John A. Alonzo. CAST: Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Paul Hampton, Gwen Welles, Warren J. Kemmerlng, Sid Melton, Zooey Hall. (Olive Films)
In a career filled with overwrought melodramas and bubblegum action films, it is a pleasure to revisit director Sidney J. Furie with what he does best: ice-cold crime pictures.
This excellent no-nonsense caper is largely forgotten today- perhaps because it has been written off as another Blaxploitation shoot-em-up. Despite the presences of Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor who had done their share back in the day, this film however owes more to The French Connection than to Superfly.
Williams is FBI agent Nick Allen, who wages a war against the drug trade after his daughter dies from a heroin overdose. Rather than retaliate against the narcotics industry at street level, Allen instead goes for the source. If you recall the scene in The French Connection that juxtaposes drug kingpin Fernando Rey eating lobster in a fancy restaurant with Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider standing outside in the freezing cold with pizza and coffee, then the meta-narrative of Hit! will seem familiar to you.
The movie intercuts between Williams recruiting and training his hit squad and scenes of the French drug czars pontificating about superficial material things and decadent sex games. These two walks of life are completely alien to one another, as are the people. The drug lords are oblivious to their customers’ identity, just as theirs are irrelevant to the hit squad.
At 134 minutes, this plays longer than the standard crime picture, or for that matter, the standard Blaxploitation movie it’s often written off as. The movie is so involving, and the script by Alan Trustman and David Wolf so psychologically complex that its extreme length is not a detriment, however it does have an unnecessary, though entertaining car chase midway, and a wobbly resolution in the final scene. The film takes the time to analyze these anonymous people living off of the misery of others, and also gives insight into the myriad characters that Nick Allen has assembled. I love the bit later in the film where the older couple is in bed the night before the hit, and each wonders aloud if this is the last time they will be together.
Drugs have in some way affected each member of his task force. For example, Richard Pryor’s character, Mike Wilmer, is a grieving widow whose wife was murdered by a junkie, and the gifted Gwen Welles plays a heroin-addicted prostitute. Initially, it doesn’t appear that these characters are seething for vengeance; rather, Allen is exploiting their misery, and moulds them to carry out his plan. Many times, these characters psychologically wrestle with the reprehensible acts they are about to commit. For this reason, Hit! is a surprisingly complex morality play, as the heroes eventually emerge as ineffectual and cold-blooded as the villains.
The performances are as solid as the characterizations. Williams is fine as the hero, even though sometimes he falls into his Lady Sings the Blues suave that isn’t necessarily right for this character (he perhaps should’ve been channeling the same aura that informed his excellent dramatic turn in the same year’s The Final Comedown.) Gwen Welles turns in another haunted performance with shades of tragedy and doom (as evidenced in her work with Robert Altman and Henry Jaglom). Singer and sometime actor Paul Hampton has probably never been better than here. However, Richard Pryor steals this movie in a brilliant (possibly improvised) performance that careens from tragedy to comedy, capturing the mania of a character that consistently fights with inner demons.
The climax of the movie is tremendously exciting. We care enough about our characters to wonder if they make it out of this intricately plotted caper, even if we don’t necessarily condone their actions. (This picture responsibly doesn’t turn death into entertainment, compared to, say, Furie’s own Iron Eagle series a decade later.)
If you’re a fan of 70s crime pictures, or simply prefer action-caper movies with some substance, then Hit! is an absolute must for your collection. It is proof positive that action and thrills can be delivered while not sacrificing characterizations or credibility.
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue 25.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.