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I Hired a Contract Killer Poster

I Hired a Contract Killer

1990 | 80m | English

(8579 votes)

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Popularity: 2 (history)

Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Writer: Aki Kaurismäki
Staring:
Details

After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.
Release Date: Oct 12, 1990
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Writer: Aki Kaurismäki
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Crime
Keywords london, england, florist, dark comedy, contract killer, redundancy
Production Companies Pandora Film, Pyramide Productions, Villealfa Filmproductions, Finnkino, Esselte Video, Channel 4 Television, Megamania
Box Office Revenue: $0
Budget: $0
Updates Updated: Jul 30, 2025
Entered: Apr 13, 2024
Trailers and Extras

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Full Credits

Name Character
Jean-Pierre Léaud Henri
Margi Clarke Margaret
Kenneth Colley The Killer
T.R. Bowen Departmen Head
Imogen Claire Secretary
Angela Walsh Landlady
Cyril Epstein Cab Driver
Nicky Tesco Pete
Charles Cork Al
Michael O'Hagan Killer's Boss
Tex Axile Bartender
Walter Sparrow Receptionist
Tony Rohr Frank
Joe Strummer Guitarist
Peter Graves Jeweller
Serge Reggiani Vic
Ette Elliot Daughter
Aki Kaurismäki Sunglasses Seller (uncredited)
Erkki Lahti Man at the Hotel Albania's Window (uncredited)
Minna Virtanen Flower Seller (uncredited)
Roberto Pla Bongo Man (uncredited)
Name Job
Aki Kaurismäki Editor, Director, Story, Screenplay
Timo Salminen Director of Photography
Jaakko Talaskivi Assistant Production Manager
John Ebden Production Design
Martin Bruce-Clayton Line Producer
David P. Kelly Line Producer
Mark Lavis Art Direction
Klaus Heydemann Production Manager
Ronald Bailey Boom Operator
Timo Linnasalo Sound
Danny Malone Sound Assistant
Jouko Lumme Sound Editor
Simon Murray Costume Design
Andy Pavord Location Manager
Pauli Pentti Unit Production Manager, First Assistant Director
Robert Fabbri Second Assistant Director
Kari Laine Second Assistant Director
Malla Hukkanen Script Supervisor, Still Photographer
Jacques Cheuiche First Assistant Camera
Wolfgang Kluge Grip
Olli Varja Gaffer
Tom Forsström Sound Re-Recording Mixer
Heikki Ukkonen Property Master
Haije Alanoja Production Secretary
Erkki Astala Post Production Coordinator
Beryl Mortimer Sound Effects
Danny Coulson Negative Cutter
Peter A. Hoffman Gaffer
Peter von Bagh Idea
Nigel Ashby Carpenter
Sarah Horton Property Buyer
Philip Hunt Props
Richard F. Ward III Carpenter
Peter Bass Electrician
George Cowen Genetator Operator
Isabella Fernandes Second Assistant Camera
Andy Eliot Assistant Location Manager
Charlie Woodhouse Assistant Location Manager
Jamie Forder Driver
Irmeli Debarle Dialogue Coach
Jonathan Finn Production Assistant
Tom Houghton Production Assistant
Peter La Terriere Production Assistant
Erkki Lahti Catering
Mikko Lyytikäinen Translator
Giulia Maura Production Assistant
Michael Powell In Memory Of
Name Title
Aki Kaurismäki Producer
Organization Category Person
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Popularity History


Year Month Avg Max Min
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2024 5 12 17 7
2024 6 12 21 7
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2025 1 8 12 5
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2025 3 4 8 1
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2025 10 2 2 1

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Reviews

CRCulver
6.0

Very early in his career, the Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki established an aesthetic for his films in colour that has held for decades now: the characters are blue-collar people struggling to get by, and whatever emotions they feel, their lines of hatred, love, hope, or disappointment are communicat ... ed in an utterly deadpan, monotone fashion. The scenery is usually drab industrial buildings and rusting dockyards. Kaurismäki's 1990 film I HIRED A CONTRACT KILLER moves that formula, developed in his native Helsinki, to London. This is not the posh London of the royal family, bankers or socialites. Kaurismäki managed to find completely dilapidated locations that I would have never imagined to exist in London of that time (though no doubt they've long since been gentrified beyond recognition at this point). Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a timid Frenchman living in London with no apparent friends or surviving family, has worked for fifteen years for a state utility. When he is made redundant in a bit of Thatcher-era privatization, he feels he has nothing more to live for. He attempts suicide twice, both tries ending in morbidly humorous failure, and he lacks the courage to try any further. He decides to enter the East End criminal underworld and to hire a paid assassin to kill him. The mob boss takes Henri's money and tells him it will be done through a subcontractor. But when Henri meets the lovely Margaret (Margi Clarke) and starts coming out of his shell, he suddenly has second thoughts. Unable to call off the job, he and Margaret try to evade the hitman (Kenneth Colley), already on Boulanger's trail. Kaurismäki's films are, to a large extent, dark comedies, and there are some laughs here. I also appreciated the element of homage to Kaurismäki's forebears and peers here. Colley's sad hitman and the way the shots frame him was surely drawn from the crime capers that Jean-Pierre Melville shot in his last years. Kaurismäki's perennial love for drab scenery had been boosted by his newly established friendship with Jim Jarmusch, a director who presented America at this time as so many vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Still, I wouldn't consider this among Kaurismäki's best work. One of the things that makes Kaurismäki's main, Finnish-language output so hilarious is that the characters speak in literary Finnish (nearly a different language than colloquial Finnish). When the dialogue is in English and with a mix of UK accents, the formula is not quite as effective. Jean-Pierre Léaud's English is almost incomprehensible -- the actor has been a titan of French film since the New Wave of Truffaut and Godard, but he's not proficient enough in English to do English-language cinema. Kaurismäki no doubt wanted intended the character to sound that way, but it feels off for this viewer. I'd recommend this film only to those who have enjoyed a series of Kaurismäki's stronger films of the era like the so-called "Proletariat Trilogy"

Jun 23, 2021
Geronimo1967
7.0

"Henri" (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is so down in the dumps that he decides it's time to end it all. Not suicide, though - nope. He decides to pay a local gangster £1,000 to do the job in the style of an hit! OK, money's money thinks his would be assassin so the job is assigned to his veteran enforcer Kenne ... th Colley - but it turns out that he hasn't his problems to seek either. To make matters even more complex, "Henri" is sitting in the pub - awaiting what he hopes will be the inevitable - when he meets "Margaret" (Margi Clarke). She's trying to make a living selling flowers and after a brief chat, well might it be possible that something may come of this friendship that might cause him to have a change of heart? Can he even have a change of heart? There's refund mechanism if the job fails - but if he cancels it? The threads of the three principal characters are woven engagingly together here as what initially looked like a rather daft fait accompli starts to develop into something altogether more characterfully light-hearted. Margi Clarke never failed to bring some edgy charisma to the screen and here she gels well with a Léaud whom I don't think I've ever seen doing a part in English before. His vulnerabilities, clumsiness even, with that tongue help to add a piquancy to his increasingly awakening persona. This also benefits from a brevity. At just shy of eighty minutes, it moves along efficiently telling the story in a focussed fashion that doesn't meander off to sink us in cheesy sentiment and there's plenty of will he/won't he to keep us guessing.

Sep 26, 2024