Ruggedly handsome DTV action pin-up, Jeff Wincott plays, Harlin Garrett, an amnesiac burns victim who regains consciousness in an austere warehouse space, discovers to his increasing disorientation that he has undergone plastic surgery, finding himself being closely scrutinized by the altogether disagreeable villain, Mr. Green (Michael Ironside). Harlin later discovers that he used to be a ruthlessly efficient hit man, now replete with a shiny new pretty face, looking not unlike actor, Jeff Wincott, he reluctantly finds himself ordered by his Machiavellian handler to kill, only this time Harlin's targets are seemingly innocent civil servants, whereas previously he would only assassinate those guilty of the most heinous crimes.
Fundamentally, 'The Killing Man' is formulaic PM Entertainment-style whizz-bang frippery, yet this fortuitously fast-moving, noir-ish actioner delivered some bone-crunchingly bellicose Kung Fu beat downs, and some enjoyably splattery shoot-outs, as dead-eye Harlin Garrett wends his inevitably bloody way to a corpse-strewn showdown, wherein the aggrieved, Garret fatefully changes allegiances, resolutely turning the tables on the shadowy, malevolent Mr. Green's far from gun shy henchmen and bringing them all to justice, his way! The steely presences of taciturn, Jeff Wincott and the menacing, Michael Ironside bolstering the B-Movie shenanigans herein, Wincott's enigmatic, morally conflicted killer, Harlin playing well against the Canadian icon's rapaciously immoral, Mr. Green!
While some folk have a tendency to over scrutinize B-Movies, I usually keep my expectations in check, and for me at least, this noisome shoot 'em up proved to be more than passable late-night brain melt. You have a credibly conflicted, action-ready, heavy-hitting hit man in Garrett and a tremendously 'hiss-able' villain in the glacial guise of the eminently loathsome, Mr. Green, contrasting rather nicely against a delightfully non-cliched damsel-in-distress with Garrett's perky love interest, Dr. Ann Kendall (Terri Hawkes), so I mostly kinda' dug it, the unsophisticated actioner temporarily took my mind off grotty life stuff, and sometimes that's all I need from a B-Movie!
