No matter what decade they happen to be in, assassination movies, or hitman movies if you want to call them that, tend to be the type of movies that we love simply because they offer a great deal of action and intrigue as well as introspection. After all, how long can someone keep up this kind of profession without being caught or without having to dose themselves to sleep every night? You would almost think that a hitman would have force themselves to forget the faces of those the executed if only to be able to lead a moderately sane life. But as it’s been seen in many of the movies a lot of the killers have ice water in their veins and are able to go about their lives without so much as a blip on their moral radar. It’s a job more or less a lot of times, a way to get paid and keep themselves from being forced to have to feel much of anything. At least that’s the way it seems to be.
Here are five of the best hitman movies from the 70s.
5. Death Rage
It’s kind of funny how a traumatic experience can take a hitman off his game and force him into retirement, but an equally traumatic experience can bring him back into the game. When the person that killed Peter’s brother, thereby sending him into retirement, angers a man that seeks his services Peter is enticed to come back into his former line of work to do the deed. Unfortunately what he finds upon starting the job is that he wasn’t given every last detail of what really happened and eventually has to sort out the mess in the way that only a hitman possibly can. Sometimes revenge isn’t the best reason to go back to work.
4. The Disappearance
Sometimes a movie ends with more questions than it decided to ask since in this particular movie Jay ends up finding his wife gone and thinks that she was taken or killed to start with. But as the tale unravels and he finds that he’s been ordered to complete another hit he continues to grow nervous about the whole thing. Unfortunately for him he meets up with the head of the Organization he works for and finds that he’s been sleeping with Jay’s wife. After killing the two men he was sent to meet and reconnecting with his wife Jay is shot outside their apartment, but there’s no answer as to who did it or why, or if his wife had anything to do with it.
3. The Day of the Jackal
There was a remake of sorts made of this movie with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis, but a lot of people claim that it didn’t have the same effect as the original. The long and short of it is that the Jackal is an expert assassin that knows how to move about unseen and make his way towards a target without anyone being the wiser. But when you work with a group that can’t really be relied on for the same kind of stealth and professionalism you tend to get caught. The Jackal almost pulled it off however, missing simply because of one minor move that saved his target’s life. Sometimes it’s just a matter of chance.
2. Portrait of a Hitman
Even hitmen can become entangled in twisted webs of desire. This time however the target this painter/assassin is sent to take out is the same man that has the hots for the woman he’s with, and on top of that is an old friend. This brings to mind the idea of whether a hitman can really bring themselves to pull the trigger on someone that they actually know and might respect a bit, or if they can push all that aside and simply get the job done without taking a look back in the next second. You can only imagine the moral conundrum that might emerge in the mind of some folks since offing someone you know is a lot different than killing a stranger, or so it would seem.
1. The Mechanic
A remake was made of this movie as well featuring Jason Statham and Ben Foster, but whether or not people think it was that great is up for debate since it wasn’t all that bad. But you just can’t beat Charles Bronson since the guy seems to have been born to play a tough guy despite not seeming to be physically imposing in the least bit. For all that however he does play a great part as a professional assassin that takes in a younger apprentice that is eventually the end of him. Of course it’s not a total loss, he did manage to kill his killer in the end.
Hitman movies are simply awesome.
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