The big hit

Nobody will ever mistake this film for Shakespeare, but it's got something. True, the car scene is ridiculous (although any car enthusiast will tell you that the yellow car Melvin drives is a Trans Am, not a Camaro), but the timing of the film is-- well, pure Grosse Pointe Blank. Where GPB works subtly and gives us an amoral antihero trying to pretend to be good, The Big Hit gives us Melvin Smiley, a basically good guy who tries, and occasionally succeeds, to be bad.

Running gags like the kidnapping victim who keeps getting away, the turncoat "friend" who just won't die (played with wonderful reptilian zeal by Lou Diamond Phillips), and Elliot Gould's "prune juice," the nasty video store clerk (reminiscent of the "two dollars" kid from "Better Off Dead," and Bokeem Woodbine's love affair with his hand, keep the whole thing fun.

This movie will never win an Oscar. Y'know what? Man cannot live on Oscar-winners alone.

And it beats the heck outta Batman and Robin.