Hitman 1.5 - Boris

Hitman: Boris

Genre: Action

Director: Francis Lawrence

Writer: Dwight Gallo

Based on the video game series

Cast: Ed Skrein, Charlotte Riley, Christian Berkel, Iain Armitage, Henry Ian Cusick, Sergej Trifunovic and Tygo Gernandt

Plot: Diana Burnwood (Charlotte Riley) meets with Agent 47 (Ed Skrein) after he goes through a training course at the ICA headquarters in Greenland. She tells him that his next assignment is to assassinate a world-class arms dealer, Arkadij Jegorov aka "Boris". 47 shows her the letter he found in Frantz Fuchs' hotel room and asks her about it. Diana confirms 47's suspicions that all of his hits so far are connected. She tells him that each of his targets so far were involved in the French Foreign Legion at some point, and that Jegorov was a weapons supplier for Lee Hong and Pablo Belisario, but doesn't know much more than that. 47 asks her if she knows who put out the contracts on them, but Diana says she doesn't know, but that it isn't the same person since that would violate ICA policy. She gives 47 a plane ticket to Rotterdam, and tells 47 that Jegorov's whereabouts are currently unknown, so he'll have to use his skills and resources to track him down.

In Rotterdam, Netherlands, 47 receives a call from Diana telling him that he has been assigned an additional contract while he is in Rotterham. The Mayor of Rotterdam has taken out a contract on the leader of a local biker gang, Rutgert Van Leuven (Tygo Gernandt). 47 easily kills Van Leuven and many other members of the biker gang by blowing up their hideout. Diana contacts him and asks if he has killed Van Leuven yet. He says yes. She is disappointed since he was supposed to meet up with Jegorov and that will now be more difficult now that 47 has already killed Van Leuven. He tells her not to worry, that he'll figure something out.

47 tracks a remaining biker to a meeting. He kills the biker and assumes his identity and hands off a suitcase of money, with a tracking device inside, to Ivan Zilvanovitch (Sergej Trifunovic). 47 watches the tracker as it stops along the coast. He heads toward the location, finding that Zilvanovitch has brought the suitcase aboard a cargo ship.

47 infiltrates the cargo ship. When he enters the ship he finds that Arkadij Jegorov (Henry Ian Cusick) has prepared a thermonuclear bomb on the ship in case anything goes wrong. 47 kills Jegorov, but finds that the bomb has been armed and is getting ready to detonate. 47 manages to disarm the bomb thanks to it being an older model. 47 then steers the cargo ship out into international waters. He calls Diana and gives her the ship's coordinates so that she can arrange for an ICA helicopter to evacuate him.

FLASHBACK: Young 47 (Iain Armitage) sits in a chair while Dr. Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer (Christian Berkel) has a barcode tattooed on the back of 47's head. 47 begins to fight, so Dr. Ort-Meyer has him restrained so that the barcode doesn't get messed up. 47 begins crying from the pain. This is the first time 47 has ever cried, and it catches him by surprise. Dr. Ort-Meyer writes down a note about the crying, finding that the barcode is what draws tears from the boy. He comments to some of the orderlies present that he doesn't think 47 is crying from the pain, but rather that he thinks 47 is crying because of what a barcode on his neck would represent.

47 sits in his room at the ICA barracks. He is trying to connect the dots between all of his targets, but can't figure out the connection between them that would want them all dead. Diana watches a monitor showing a video feed from 47's room. She's wondering why he's so interested in who he's been hired to kill.

Hitman works best in scenes centered around the main character. There's something about 47 that always intrigues me and Ed Skrein got him down to a tee. 

I'm a little bit disappointed by the lack of interesting long term storyline on the show. Sure there's one, but the viewer is kept in the dark. It makes the show too episodic, like the games it is based on.

This show benefits a lot from his production design. The various impressive settings make it interesting week after week and Francis Lawrence knows how to cook a great action sequence while building tension, which works great for a show like Hitman.

The Numbers : Highest Paid Actors

In the first ever The Numbers segment of Last Resort Television, we are going to look at the highest paid actors of our first season.

10. Ezra Miller - $150,000 / episode 

• The rising star bags $150,000 per episode for his role as factory worker Otto Struber in François Ozon and Chad Taylor's Lady of the House. He stars alongside Linda Cardellini and Alfred Molina in the Monday late night show.

9.  Andy Garcia - $150,000 / episode

• The veteran actor first appeared in Miami Vice last week, but it came with a nice paycheck. He portrays the new lieutenant, Martin Castillo in the reboot of the classic television series of the same name

8. Malin Akerman : $150,000 / episode

• Akerman is slowly building a career at LRF (most people forget that she has a pair of Golden Reel nominations under her belt) and her salary for one of the lead roles on Search Here reflects it.

7. Matthew Rhys - $150,000 / episode

• The veteran television actor reportedly took a discount to star in Nez Perce in efforts to keep the show budget-friendly and to lower the gap between his salary and his Native American co-stars. 
   

6. Linda Cardellini : $165,000 / episode

• It has been reported that network executives fought hard to have Linda Cardellini be the highest-paid actor on Lady of the House, even if she's not the biggest star on the cast. Her work as femme fatale Polly Reisinger nets her $165,000, just a little bit higher than her co-stars Ezra Miller and Alfred Molina

5. Zooey Deschanel : $175,000 / episode

• It was reportedly very hard for the network to convince Zooey Deschanel to return to the world of television comedy following her lenghty stint on New Girl, but a $175,000 per episode contract was enough to cast her as Melissa Day Sharpe on Search Here.

4. Tobey Maguire - $200,000 / episode

• A fat paycheck was enough to secure the former star to take his talent to the television world after he was reportedly not sold on the idea. You can catch him Tuesday nights playing painter Marcel Barbeau alongside Rebecca Hall in Leaving Everything

3. Dan Stevens - $200,000 / episode

• The Drive star is on-demand right now and following his stint on Legion and his starring role as Victor Frankenstein in the Monster Universe, he didn't come cheap. You can catch him on Tuesday in Drive as the Driver, in an adaptation of Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 film.

2. John Goodman - $225,000 / episode

• The veteran actor commands a large salary to have a supporting role in Search Here. His previous television weighted in the balance and so does his LRF career. With two Golden Reel nominations under his belt and starring roles in three Best Picture nominee, it comes as no surprise to see his high salary.

1. Josh Hartnett - $225,000 /episode

• The network poured a lot of money on the Oliver Stone-produced drama so it makes senses that its lead character and biggest star makes the highest salary this season. 

Gauntlet 1.6 - Mid-Season

Gauntlet - Mid-Season

Genre: Sports / Drama

Executive Producer: Antoine Fuqua

Writer: Matt Parker

Cast : William Fichtner, Josh Duhamel, Trevor Jackson, John David Washington, Brian Howe and Reid Scott

Plot: The Memphis Pharaohs enter the locker room, hooting and hollering. They have just won another game, this time beating the Boston Spirit by 14, bringing their record to 4-2 midway through the 12 game AFA season. Coach Ken Heath (William Fichtner) congratulates the team on successfully executing the game plan. He tells the team to rest up since they will be squaring off against the first-place Baltimore Barons next week.

Quarterback Tim Collins (Josh Duhamel) contemplates calling his girlfriend, the mayor of Memphis, but instead decides to simply head home and ice his sore shoulder. He has a few drinks while watching the news and falls asleep in front of highlights from the night's games.

Rookie running back Jefferson Thomas (Trevor Jackson) receives a text from his agent. Thomas gets excited over the text's contents and heads home. He begins scribbling out notes feverishly.

Injured star Lincoln Tatum (John David Washington) is finally out of the hospital, but his leg is in a full traction brace while he recovers from the problematic knee surgery. He pops a fistful of his pain medication, washing it down with vodka.

Coach Heath is in his office with his assistants starting to discuss who they want to scout for the draft in the off-season. One of the assistants, Coach Brower (Brian Howe), broaches the subject of going after a quarterback in the first round. This makes Heath uncomfortable as he believes Collins, despite his age, still has some gas left in the tank. Brower suggests that it's never to soon to groom the next man for the job and recommends they specifically scout Michigan State quarter back Michael Revolli. Heath tells him that he doesn't to discuss quarterbacks right now and would rather move on to thinking about their upcoming game against Baltimore.

Jefferson Thomas is in a recording studio recording a rap album. His agent Eli Towns (Reid Scott) is sitting the wings typing away at his phone. He's trying to get Thomas on a nationally broadcast show to up his profile after most pundits have named him as the early favorite for Rookie of the Year despite his first couple of games. The sound engineer cuts Thomas off and has him start from the beginning of a rap. This annoys Thomas and he threatens to leave, but Towns is able to convince him to stay.

In practice, Thomas is showing a notable lack of hustle. Collins calls him out on it, saying that he should be more focused on figuring out how to beat the Barons and less focused on his rap dreams. Thomas throws a punch at Collins, but is stopped by the other players. Coach Heath orders both players to his office immediately. He tells them to cut out the bickering and focus on practicing. Thomas scoffs, but Heath shoots him a look that shuts him up. He then excuses Collins from the office. Heath looks Thomas in the eye and tells him that he needs to keep his ducks in a row or he'll suspend him without pay from the team. Thomas nods and leaves the office.

In the fourth quarter of the game against the Baltimore Barons, the Pharaohs are down by 10 with five minutes to go. Collins audibles out of a running play, much to Thomas' annoyance, and throws an interception. Thomas doesn't go after the ball carrier. On the sidelines after the play, Collins and Thomas continue shouting at each other as the Barons go up by another score. Coach Heath orders them both to head into the locker room, replacing them with unseasoned backups. Tatum, watching the game from home, turns the game off in disgust.

After the game, Coach Heath trashes the locker room. He yells at Thomas and Collins that if they can't find a way to work together that he'll find two players who can and play them instead. He reminds the entire team that football is a team sport, no one player can win a game by himself, just like no one player can lose a game by himself.

"The cast really makes this show work for me. I don't think there's a single bad performance in the ensemble and everyone really live up to their role, thanks to strong work from both Parker and Fuqua. 

I once heard someone say that Gauntlet is like a soap opera for men and I agree. No matter what the showrunner throws at his characters, I keep coming back week after week and this is what a television series is all about. 

I have very mixed feelings about Gauntlet. While I enjoy the show overall, I can kind of see how it will play out in the end, and I don't like that. Still, hats up to Matt Parker who managed to surprise me by throwing curveballs and let's hope he does it again