R0BTRAIN's Bad Ass Cinema: The Hitlist Finale

Anyone else remember when I started this list? I never imagined it would take this long to finish this list up, but here we are MONTHS later and I’m finally getting to the end. Delay after delay couldn’t stop these assassins from finishing the job, and thankfully I got to finish this before the end of the year. These are the cream of the crop, the killers of killers, bringing death to all they survey.

Speaking of death, I’m also turning 30 this week, and as usual my buddies took me out for a movie to celebrate. This year, my devotion to Garth Ennis’ run on The Punisher forced me to pick the new movie as my viewing selection, with visions of pouty Dolph Lungdren and Thomas Jane performances giving me as much trepidation as the movie’s bad reviews. Even so, I thought Punisher: War Zone was a ton of fun. Mind you, its not a “good” movie per se, but there’s tons of gore and Ray Stevenson is no question the best Frank Castle ever.

It’s just nice to watch a Punisher movie where the hero doesn’t pussyfoot around with goofy fake fire hydrants and stupid plans. He kills people, and likes doing it too. Like the best movies of Paul Verhoven, this is violence with reckless abandon, as Stevenson’s Punisher punches through heads (I’m not exaggerating) and turns bad guys into Pez dispensers. Hats off to Lionsgate for giving 2008 bookend bad asses with hardcore bloodletting, starting off with the return of Rambo and then finishing off the year with War Zone‘s insanity.

With that, I bring you the rest of my favorite hired killers.

Here’s the list so far:

20. The Professor, played by Clive Owen – The Bourne Identity
19. Alex, played by William H. Macy – Panic
18. Terry Tsurugi, played by Sonny Chiba – The Streetfighter
17. Maguire, played by Jude Law – Road to Perdition
16. Hanada Goro, played by Jo Shishido – Branded to Kill
15. El Mariachi, played by Antonio Banderas – The Mariachi Trilogy
14. Jaws, played by Richard Kiel – The Spy Who Loved Me
13. The Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger – The Terminator
12. Red Grant, played by Robert Shaw – From Russia with Love
11. Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon – The Bourne Trilogy
10. Jules, played by Samuel L. Jackson – Pulp Fiction
9. Martin Q. Blank, played by John Cusack – Grosse Pointe Blank
8. Vincent, played by Tom Cruise – Collateral
7. Ghost Dog, played by Forest Whitaker – Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai
6. The Bride, Played by Uma Thurman – Kill Bill

And without further ado, the final five…
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5. Leon, played by Jean Reno – Leon: The Professional

“No women, no kids.”

There was a time when The Professional seemed to be the “in” bad ass Hitman movie. Luc Besson was kind of a hot director, and his visual operatic flourishes shine the brightest here in this tale of principled hired killer vs. mad dog cop. Of course, a lot of the reason people loved this movie was because of Gary Oldman’s awesome Stansfield, the rogue, murderous police officer who seems to destroy all in his path, which Oldman absolutely plays for the cheap seats. Upon further reflection though, it’s Reno’s quiet hitman who ends up being the rock for this movie.

This is a terrific example of an actor playing a character so unassuming, that when the Hyde portion of his personality comes out you can’t believe it. I love little character ticks, like Leon’s penchact for milk, and those goofy glasses and highwater pants that he wears that make him look more like a nerdy librarian than a hired killer. Reno even kind of gives him a weird little shuffle step that makes him look meek and helps to keep this distance from others.

Then again, even when pushed against the wall, Reno keeps the character as low key as possible. Leon says little and never moves without purpose, but when he is on screen you can’t take your eyes off of him. He kills with efficiency rather than brutality, which makes him a fascinating character to watch. As he passes his skills off to little Mathilda (Natalie Portman), you feel like it’s the only real connection he’s ever had with another person. Then again, it probably is, because everyone else he’s ever met has ended up dead.

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4. Ogami Itto, played by Tomisaburo Wakayama – The Lone Wolf and Cub (AKA: Shogun Assassin Series)

“They shall pay. With rivers of blood!”

In Writer Kazuo Koike and the Artist Goseki Kojima original Lone Wolf and Cub Manga series they had a vision for Ogami Itto as a dashing Samurai who was an unparalleled killer. Itto is the Shogun’s personal executioner who is betrayed and sent on the run by the very Government he served, and along with his son forms the assassination team from the title of the book While Itto has been played several times on screen, even kind of by Tom Hanks in one instance, and by much more handsome men, it is Tomisaburo Wakayama’s stone-faced killer that is the definitive version of this character for the screen.

The tagline for the original release of Shogun Assassin read “Meet the greatest team in the history of mass slaughter!” and you know what…they earn it! Wakayama’s Itto and his son Diagoro are nearly unstoppable onscreen, wiping out scores of ninjas and contracted targets by the dozen. Try not to howl with excitement as Itto cuts off limbs and splits heads in half with lightning speed, all while seemingly not even breaking a sweat. If there are Kill Bill fans that dug watching the Bride slaughter the Crazy 88 with blood geysers galore, then check this entire series out immediately!

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3. Jef Costello, played by Alan Delon – Le Samouraï

“I never lose. Never really.”

When talking about hitmen, there are few things that are better than watching a killer who is just so damn cool, and let me tell you, they don’t get much cooler that Alan Delon’s Jef Costello. Sure, he’s an awesome killer who is incredibly precise, pulling off nearly the perfect kill each time out, but even if Jef were just going to plan out the perfect sandwich instead of the perfect hit, he’d still be mesmerizing on screen, just because of Delon’s slow burn. Honestly, you’d swear Delon probably says four words the entire running time of this movie, and you wouldn’t be far off, because Jef is the type of guy that doesn’t need to say anything to get his point across.

Delon’s Costello is a killer cut out of a classic mold. He’s like a cat that is silent until he finally strikes, not even revealing himself to the audience at times unless you look very closely. Its this coolness that makes him such an amazing killer, and its what earns him this spot on this list.

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2. Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem – No Country for Old Men

“Call it…”

It’s not often that you get to come across a character as stunning as Anton Chigurh. There’s the moment in No Country when Woody Harrelson’s Carson Welles is asked how dangerous Chigurh is and he responds “Compared to what? The bubonic plague?” Well, this is about an apt description of Javier Bardem’s character as you could get. He’s more like a force of nature than he is a hitman. There’s simply no stopping him, whether its squads of gangsters or other hired killers or the film’s “heroes” you just kind of know that there’s no way that Chigurh is going to be stopped in the end.

The character is so overwhelming that the entire point of the movie is about him simply overtaking the life of Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Ed Tom Bell to the point where Bell has to quit being a lawman entirely. Like Hannibal Lector, Chigurh is just going to go down as one of those immortal characters who become part of the cinematic landscape, and like they say in the movie itself, “You can’t stop what’s coming.” There’s no stopping Chigurh either.

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1. Ah Jong, played by Chow Yun Fat – The Killer

“I always leave one bullet, either for myself or for my enemy.”

It’s hard to really decide how to pick a #1 when it comes to a list like this. All of these killers are exceptional at what they do, whether they like it or not. They kill by the hundreds and do it with style. What you want to do, is choose the one that completely distills all of your criteria at once. Cool as a cumber? Check. Says more with his actions that he does with his words? Check. An unstoppable killing machine who destroys all he sets his sights on? Check!

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It’s just hard to picture any screen killer other than Chow Yun Fat’s Ah Jong being at the top of this list for me. John Woo’s leading man has as much screen charisma as I’ve seen on screen in the last two decades, and this is one of his finest performances, infusing this hitman with as much humanity as I’ve ever seen as he blows away scumbags by the hundreds. With his double fisted .45’s going, there’s just no stopping him, as gangster after gangster finds out.

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This is the assassin that nearly every screen killer has tried to emulate since this movie’s release, (look at Timothy Oliphant from Hitman as an example) but none has come close to really matching Ah Jong’s coolness, humanity or ferocity. This is a screen actor in one of his signature roles, and a director at the top of his game for an explosive mix that’s hard to replicate. The Killer is as good as it gets in this category, and Chow Yun Fat is the assassin at its center.

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.