ACCIDENT MAN: HITMAN'S HOLIDAY

UK, 2022, 96 minutes, Colour.

Scott Adkins, Ray Stevenson, Kerry Benson, Sarah Chang, George Fouracres, Flaminia Cinque, Beau Fowler, Peter Lee Thomas.

Directed by George Kirby, Harry Kirby.

In 2018, British action star and martial arts champion, Scott Adkins, had success with the crime drama, Accident Man. The main villain was played by Ray Stevenson. There was an action show of fights, gangsters, betrayals, killing. In 2022, this sequel.

For the martial arts action fans, enjoyment in seeing Adkins again as the hitman, Mike Fallon, the return of Ray Stevenson as the heavy, and Perry Benson as the rather ingenuous inventor-killer.

As regards the plot, the setting is Malta, Fallon available for assassinations (plenty in Malta), teaming up with his friend, Ray Stevenson tracking him down and threatening. The basic plot is that a gangster matriarch wants protection for her son while five world assassins are trying to track him down. He is something of an idiot, a would-be singer in a club, behaves ridiculously, seems hardly worth saving. However, Fallon has to save him and fight and conquer the world assassins. He does so with the help of a friend, martial arts champion, whom he pays to come up on him suddenly to test his skills. More or less expected, lots of choreography for the fights.

While the fans enjoy this kind of film, those looking at it more seriously have many issues raised. The first is the somewhat engaging (not always)  Mike Fallon is actually something of a conscienceless hitman for higher, achieving what he sets out to do, in some ways carrying some guilt for betraying friends in the previous film. But, he continues this work in the present film – and the challenge for audiences for some kind of moral perspective on who he is, what he does, the people who pay him to do this, the world of gangsters and power, thugs. And, there is the inherent violence in the fights, the necessity for the plot, not so much the what of the fights but how they are choreographed, the brutality and the violence.

Popular films – but raising issues about why they are so popular and what of the key issues for discussion.