Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

John Seal According to IMDb, this film wasn't released until 1984, seven years after its completion. When you watch Portrait of a Hit Man (as the title appears on screen), you'll understand why it sat in the can so long. Jack Palance delivers one of his anguished non-performance performances as Jim Buck, a professional gunman (and amateur painter) hired by Max Andreotti (a svelte Rod Steiger) to rub out Dr. Bob Michaels (Bo Svenson). Problem: Jim and Bob are best buds from way back, and Jim is most reluctant to carry out the hit. There's a ton of navel-gazing, some very boring sex scenes, an embarrassing turn from Richard Roundtree as a Jamaican drug dealer, some Asian wisdom offered by Philip Ahn, and even a brief appearance by legendary singing cowboy Herb Jeffries, who wisely chose to hang up his acting spurs after appearing in this film.

th-plum i want to write about the paintings used in the movie. They are an integral part of the plot and I guess that being a painter and a hit-man is what constitutes the main character traits. The paintings you see in the house and during the opening of the exhibition at the end of the movie are all the work of the painter Tony Mafia. I think I remember him telling that they were originally in the house of the Nassi family. The portrait of the lady, wasn't done by Tony Mafia. You can easily tell by the style and the brush strokes. Tony didn't want to do that one. In the movie they give credits to him and the other painter. He was kind of proud of that. So I have a question: Why are the credits not here also? The plot works well, since the painting brings the movie to a logical conclusion. Tony like the part were the art critics rant and rave about his work at the opening of the show. He showed me that part a few times.

tim_simpson I just bought this film on DVD for $5 from a disposal bin. Why? to be honest, I wanted to see if Jack could act.I found out he can! This film is another in a stream of 1970's examples of a great script and (some) excellent acting ruined by disappointing cinematography.Very little imagination appears to have been used in the design of shots and locations, which is a odds with the good choice of atmospheric. It's as if a minimalistic lip-service has been paid to realising the vision of the screenplay.Was this budget related? It was right in the middle of a massive move to TV production by a lot of the big money Hollywood players.Personally, I'd like to see this film remade with a better crew and budget - the script deserves another chance ... maybe Jack does to!

Flixer1957 **Possible Spoilers Ahead**Jack Palance as a talented painter/vicious hit-man? Bo Svenson as a brilliant neurosurgeon? The casting is almost as weird as the plot, in which Palance and Svenson are old friends in love with the same woman and Palance has been hired to murder Svenson. Ann Turkel, Rod Steiger and Richard Roundtree are on hand also. Full of flashbacks, occasionally bloody and entertaining in spite of itself. An amusing companion piece to another Palance wonder-work, ONE MAN JURY.