“That guy is so twisted, when he dies they’re going to have to screw him into the ground”

Drake’s rating: There are only two names on the list. That’s really more of a short memo.

Drake’s review: So Hit List is not a very good movie. I just wanted to get that out of the way up front, as it has a pretty decent cast and if you came across it you might think, “Lance Henriksen as a mob assassin? Sign me up!” Because that’s what I did, so I can understand the inclination.

Also seemingly in its favor, the flick starts off with a tough FBI agent named Mitchum, and he’s played by the always reliable Charles Napier (The Blues Brothers). Mitchum is arresting accomplices of mob boss Vic Luca (Rip Torn, The Beastmaster) as Luca is on trial and the witnesses against him either keep disappearing, or turning up dead.

Luca claims complete ignorance regarding these incidents, but I’m thinking he knows more than he’s letting on. Call me suspicious, but my Mutant instincts are pretty good about things like that.

So Mitchum nabs a pair of Luca’s mob associates and puts them in protective custody, putting on the squeeze so they’ll testify against their boss. Luca’s an industrious sort, however, and when he needs an unpleasant job done, he calls the shoe store. While this might sound like an under-reaction to his current predicament unless he needs a new pair of loafers, in truth Luca’s top assassin, Caleek (Henriksen, of Stone Cold fame), works a cover job at the store. In between fittings he takes Luca’s call and sets out to take care of business.

I’m assuming he brought his customer the right size of pumps before heading out on his killing spree, because Caleek seems pretty conscientious about his employment as a shoe salesman.

The first target goes down easily enough, even though the man was confined to a local jail cell and surrounded by cops. Unfortunately, Caleek gets the wrong address for the second job. Oops! That means he kidnaps the wrong kid, which won’t help at all to keep Luca’s second accomplice quiet.

Worse, the kid he absconds with is the son of Jack Collins (Jan-Michael Vincent, Hooper). And I think that’s supposed to mean something in the context of the movie but it never really does, because this is Jan-Michael Vincent in 1989, and after years of substance abuse and numerous arrests, the man just does not look well. The Jan-Michael Vincent of a decade earlier could have knocked this role out of the park, and the audience would have been invested in the action. But the Jan-Michael Vincent of 1989 is in his mid-forties, looks a decade older, and appears to be struggling to remember his lines even though they tend to be a dozen words at most.

And that’s the biggest problem with Hit List. The movie’s star is simply in no shape to lead a film.

Fortunately, for a bit at least, Collins teams up with the second accomplice, Frank DeSalvo (Leo Rossi, Halloween II), and Hit List turns into a buddy movie of sorts. Rossi plays the part as a witty motormouth, which keeps the flick moving ahead, dragging Vincent along with it. But all good things must come to an end, and DeSalvo and Collins eventually are separated, leaving Vincent to navigate through the movie by himself for 20 long minutes before they reunite for an unlikely ending.

Hit List is one of the half-score or so directorial efforts by prolific producer William Lustig, and it’s one of his weaker films. An exploitation veteran with films like Vigilante and Maniac Cop under his belt, Hit List lacks Lustig’s traditional griminess and never really finds its footing.

Lance Henriksen takes a distinct sadistic glee in his role as the remorseless killer, and quite honestly the movie should have switched its focus to Caleek and minimized Jan-Michael Vincent’s screen time. But sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got. Still there’s not much to recommend here. The action is passable, but the revenge angle is so underplayed as to be almost superfluous. It’s certainly not the worst action cheapie ever made, but it’s also far from the best.

Unless you want to watch Lance Henriksen selling shoes, you’re safe giving this one a pass.

Intermission!

• I also interrupt solemn funerals to break open coffins and search for drugs. That’s earned me a lifetime ban from every cemetery on the West Coast.
• Shoe salesman by day, ruthless killer by night. And also by day sometimes. I hope he has flexible hours at the shoe store.
• Dude! Don’t drink out of a hose! Ick!
• Oh, he’s dead now. Granted, that was probably due to Caleek shooting him, but that sip from the hose would have finished him off eventually anyway.
• A shootout in a laser tag arena is SO 1989.
• Cutting back to the trial slows the already glacial pacing to a halt.
• Lance Henriksen always does a great death scene.
• Whoops! Nope, he was shot three times but he’s still alive and kicking. If he says, “They were only flesh wounds,” I swear I’m gonna…
• Welp, I guess Mitchum had had enough. If he’d just done that 90 minutes ago, we could have avoided this whole movie!