After reading the first 15 pages or so of the action script I’m (admittedly not consistently) working on, my brother said one scene -– in which one of the main characters, the hit man, makes a protein shake and slugs it down -– vaguely reminded him of a movie he thought we saw together when he was living down here in Virginia -– an early Mark Wahlberg movie called The Big Hit. He said he wasn’t sure why, but when he read that scene he thought of that movie.
I didn’t remember seeing it, but his memory is pretty good, so I figured I probably did –- then I got worried that maybe I had subconsciously lifted a piece of it.
Or should I say, piece of shit.
I slid The Big Hit to the top of my Netflix queue and watched it as soon as it landed in the mailbox. I quickly recognized it –- yes I have seen this movie. And I wondered if I groaned as much the first time I watched it with little brother.
What a weak freaking movie. And frankly, I’m a big Mark Wahlberg fan –- I think he’s fantastic. But this thing: so tired and trite and not fun at all. Bad dialogue, thin characters, unimaginative plot, boring action scenes. Plus they gave ol’ Marky Mark a really shitty auburn dye job.
And don’t even get me started on Lou Diamond Phillips’s character. Or wardrobe.
I will say I liked this movie when it was called Grosse Pointe Blank -– which came out a year earlier. (I wonder if Cusack was mad about that. Actually, he probably just chuckled and toasted himself and his talent.)
Turns out my brother’s memory is flawed -– there were no protein shakes in it, though Wahlberg’s character does slug Maalox like it’s going out of style. Because he’s stressed being a hit man, working for bad people and juggling two women who don’t treat him right. Get it? So he ends up getting together with the cute Japanese teenager he begins the movie by kidnapping. (China Chow, who is adorable.) She’s okay with his being a hit man because it’ll be a “constant adrenaline rush” and she promises that in their relationship, unlike with those other girls, the love will be a two-way street.
It made me feel so much better about my script. Because my script is so much better. So far at least.
Of course… this movie actually got made and mine exists only as 30 pages of a MovieMagic Screenwriter file in my aging laptop. So put that in your pipe, David, and take a Big Hit.
The real question, I suppose is this: why does my brother hate me so much?
4 comments:
Dude, don’t you understand? Ever since you sat my ass down on the red hot kitchen stove and burned a double circle into my flashy corduroys (scarring me and my pants for life), I’ve been quietly trying it find ways to keep you down. I’ve generally found Marky Mark references or the old mullet reminders do the trick. Remember when you caught yourself on fire playing with your chemistry set in the darkroom? Yeah, that was me too.
That was you? You coulda killed me!
And wow, thanks for telling everyone I had a mullet. Those days were behind me, but now...
(Sorry about the pants. Really.)
I remember there being one kinda cool gun-fight sequence-- probably near the beginning. Something about a dark room being shot full of light or something. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. But I do recall that I was very disappointed with the film. I can't remember why I went to see it-- in the theater, no less!
Ha! The great things about bad movies...they make all my dreams seem possible.
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