Dusk for a Hitman review
Dusk for a Hitman is an intentional, methodical look at guy who just so happens to be very good at killing.
The film is based on the life of 1970s hitman Donald Lavoie, a no-nonsense assassin in the Montreal underworld.
It’s competently made. Performances are solid and the action scenes have strong adrenaline spikes moments of intensity. Still, there’s a spark missing to help it stand alongside elite hitman films.
As the film opens, Donald (Éric Bruneau) is traveling with an associate to take out a target. Donald is smooth, calculating and emotionless. There are some shaky aspects to Dusk for a Hitman, but Bruneau is a major highlight.
Bruneau gives Donald so much more of an agenda than the script is able to convey. There always seems to be some dark thought lurking in Donald’s thoughts. When Donald starts reflecting on some of his actions over the years, Bruneau gives a clear sense of the emotional scarring they’ve weighed on him.
Donald is the big gun for Claude DuBois (Benoît Gouin) a huge crime lord who continues to expand his reach. In Donald, Claude knows he’s got a fearless associate capable of pulling off any assignment.
With the covering of “inspired by real-life events” it seems like the script should be more engaging. director/co-writer Raymond St-Jean and co-writer Martin Girard could play loose with facts to dial up the drama. Maybe throw in some really wild scenarios. Or create some near misses in escaping death. Instead, they make a notorious hitman seem largely boring.
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While he’s not wiping out problems for Claude, Donald pops in for increasingly random visits with his wife, Francine (Rose-Marie Perreault) and their daughter. Francine already knows what he does to put money on the table so that cliche subplot is avoided. Bruneau and Perreault play off of each other well. It feels like the hitman and his wife angle was fresher than Donald dealing with his loser brother, Carl (Simon Landry-Desy).
Carl is a constant screw-up, but he tries to get Donald to forgive their dying father. That was another connection that could have been explored for more dramatic effect. Maybe even telling the story from Francine’s perspective would have made what was otherwise a basic hitman’s tale more interesting.
With Carl getting so much downtime screen time with Donald, Dusk for a Hitman veers too close to a less captivating version of Carlito’s Way. The film is probably a little true to life in that the characters are just regular folks instead of these dynamic, larger than life personalities. But that doesn’t make for a story that’s going to fully keep your attention based on the subplots.
St-Jean and Girard fail to properly flesh out the world around Donald. He’s also weakly defined and developed. There’s some measure of investment in Donald simply because he’s always on screen. Yet, St-Jean and Girard don’t do enough to paint a full portrait of Donald as more than just “a gun” to be fired as needed. Claude seems fairly shady suggesting a betrayal is imminent, but it doesn’t play out that smoothly.
Some light finally emerges with the arrival of Burns (Sylvain Marcel), a police detective hoping to get Donald to turn against Claude. Burns provides a necessary foil to Donald’s perfectly arranged world.
The action scenes are sudden often signaled by a dramatic jump scare that St. Jean pulls off very well. A pair of tense chase scenes are also exquisitely laid out. Costumer Valérie Gagnon-Hamel and key hair stylist Franco Capocasale do strong work capturing the fashion and look of the era.
Dusk for a Hitman carries out the filmmakers’ intentions well enough, but the story warranted a more thrilling tale.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Photo Credit: Saban Films