This blaxploitation reboot of Mike Hodges' Get Carter (1971) was produced by Roger Corman's brother, Gene Corman, who had previously reworked John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950) for African-American audiences as Cool Breeze (1972). Taking great liberties with Ted Lewis' 1970 source novel Jack's Return, the MGM release stars former Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Bernie Casey as "Tyrone Tackett, mama," an Oakland mob enforcer who returns to his LA hometown for the funeral of his slain brother and sticks around to settle the hash of the dead man's killers. Pam Grier (the one-time American International Pictures receptionist is billed as Pamela Grier) strips down for an early role as an adult film actress in this violent tale peppered with bloodshed, copious nudity, and raw language. Condemned by the NAACP for its use of black stereotypes, Hit Man was also branded by the Catholic Film Office as "a dizzying spectacle of raw sex and supergraphic violence (that) would horrify the Marquis de Sade." Star Bernie Casey would soon put his back to blaxploitation and win plum roles in such big ticket Hollywood films as Sharky's Machine (1981) with Burt Reynolds and Never Say Never Again (1983), in which he played Felix Leiter to Sean Connery's graying James Bond. A protégé of Roger Corman, director George Armitage later directed Miami Blues (1990) with Alec Baldwin and Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), which starred John Cusack as a hitman who tangles with professional rivals at his high school reunion.

By Richard Harland Smith