It appears Roger Corman's brother Gene had an idea, black films are hot, you can get actors on the cheap and use plots from old crime movies. The results were this movie and a remake of the Asphalt Jungle called Cool Breeze. Now Get Carter wasn't known for having a great plot, more of a character study, so there's not much of a story here. Trying to follow it will only make your head hurt so just look at the scenery, dig the groove and don't worry about the details like the black ninja death squad. If your familiar with Get Carter you can practically see Armitage going through the original dialog "blacking it up". While I'm usually Bernie Casey fan, he's only with the program half the time here, but I'd put the blame on director/writer Armitage as a number of scenes are poorly written, some bordering on ridiculous. That said Casey, who's usually more of a straight man, has some good turns a stone killer. Despite the second billing, "Pamela" Grier only has a small role here, but if your a fan of her looking to see all of her, in her prime, you won't be disappointed. Overall the movie's no hidden gem like Detroit 9000, but if you're a fan of the era/genre like I am, it's well worth watching. It is has decent production values, there's a lot of on location shooting in LA, and enough interesting scenes and characters to make up for the movie's numerous failings. All you have to do is compare this to the Stallone remake to realize how far the low end has fallen, Hit Man hearkens back to an era when even bad films had some value. Maybe Fox will see it's in their interest to release it some day in the interim would be customers will have send our money elsewhere.
