Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday (2022) Review
Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday sees Mike Fallon (Scott Adkins, Legacy of Lies, One Shot) laying low in Malta after the events of the first film. Well not that low, as he’s gone back into business staging fatal accidents for a price. He has avoided most human contact except for Wong Siu-ling (Sarah Chang, The Trigonal: Fight for Justice, Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids) who is like Cato to his Inspector Clouseau.
That changes when he runs across Finicky Fred (Perry Benson, Dead Cert, Me, Myself and Di) who was about the only one of his friends he didn’t kill off in the previous film. He quickly resumes playing Q to Mike’s James Bond, devising outrageous ways to kill without arousing suspicion. Killing is their business, and business is good.
Or at least it is until somebody tries to take out Dante Zuuzer (George Fouracres, Chubby Funny, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared) the hopelessly inept son of local mafia boss Mrs. Zuuzer (Flaminia Cinque, Attack the Block, Trickster) and makes it look like Mike’s work.
Apart from starring in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, Adkins also came up with the film’s story which returning writer Stu Small turned into a script. However, Jesse V. Johnson has been replaced as director by stuntman-turned-director, George Kirby and his brother Harry. It’s the pair’s second feature after 2017’s The Real Target. The result is, as you may expect, a film that features some incredible action scenes. Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday has a stunt crew that’s larger than the cast of many films and features fight choreography and coordination by a half dozen people including Tim Man (Attack on Finland, Triple Threat) and Adkins himself.
And that extensive crew is put to good use as while Mike can prove he wasn’t behind the attempt on Dante’s life that only gets him forced to protect him against several of the world’s best professional killers, including Big Ray (Ray Stevenson, Cold Skin, RRR) who’s back from the first film and still holding s grudge.
The problem is Accident Man’s comic book origins really show through here and feel somewhat off. Among the assassins Mike has to contend with are Poco (Beau Fowler, The Haunting of Alcatraz, I Am Vengeance) a killer clown who can’t feel pain, and Yendi (Faisal Mohammed, The Legend of Tarzan, Are We Dead Yet) a hulking figure who claims to be a vampire. While they would be perfect adversaries for a costumed anti-hero, they feel too cartoonish in a “real world” setting.
There’s also a fair amount of humour in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday and I found a lot of it overdone and annoying. Obviously what people find funny is a very subjective thing, but apart from the gruesomely inventive “accidents” I just didn’t find much of it funny. If you find someone searching through their own runny shit to find a tracking device funny you may have a different opinion.
In balance though, the fight scenes in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday more than make up for the script’s failings, they’re the kind of showcases for the talents of all involved that we don’t get to see enough of these days. And the lack of shaky camerawork and fast editing is an added bonus. If you haven’t seen the original Mike’s voiceover near the start will bring you up to speed. After that, you can fast-forward through anything you find annoying without missing much.
Samuel Goldwyn Films has released Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday to theatres, VOD and Digital platforms today, October 14th in the US. Vortex Media releases it on the same date in Canada and the UK gets to see it on the 24th. And if you want an extended holiday, you can find suggestions for further viewing on FilmTagger.
What a movie thank you Scott 😊