The Hit (1984) In a Mod Mob flic with Kerouac on-the-road improvisations, Stephen Frears explores the psychological breakdown of characters caught up in a botched kidnapping and killing. Terence Stamp plays Willie Parker, the snitch turned Zen angel in Spain, and John Hurt, as the world-weary hit man Braddock, has to contend with his apprentice and general fuck-up Tim Roth. When Laura del Sol abruptly enters the plot, she refuses to become a conventional noir female victim, and fights her way through this existential angst.
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“For just a moment we’re here,
Then we’re not here.”
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A decade of Spanish later, a grasser grows
Bored with safety. caged and protected.
There’s John Lennon on his wall.
There’s John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud.”
Mentor and pupil uncross their legs,
Swap guns , and quibble about the woman.
Each stop, there’s the unexpected need
To murder somebody, even an old pal.
The landscape crawls past, browning
Into slag piles and rocky culverts.
Four beers at a roadside bar, gay swagger
Beats the boys up, then takes the roof down.
Looking into his rear-view mirror, the assassin
With multiple names realizes he’s made a mistake.
Lucky girl bites between his thumb and trigger finger,
Drawing blood as he squirms in pleasure.
Across the wasteland, they flail in a death struggle.
After knocking her out, “Lucky girl,” he gasps.
But there she is again as, running the border,
He’s machine-gunned among kitsch antiques.
For a time, “I’ll kill you,” became teen slang
For “C’mon now” or “I love you.”
[Disposable Poem February 10, 2017]
Dr. Mike
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