I recently watched The Hit, an offbeat crime drama/road movie in which the action between different gangster factions is elevated to strangely sublime realms by the character of the eloquent, quasi-spiritually evolved snitch Willie Parker, played by Terence Stamp.
Hitman Braddock (John Hurt) is about to deliver Willie across southern Spain to his mob boss in Paris. En route, Braddock goes to run an errand and returns to find his rookie accomplice Myron (Tim Roth) – who was supposed to be watching Willie – fast asleep on a rock in the woods. Desperate to find Willie, Braddock is astonished to see him standing perfectly still opposite a waterfall, seemingly in a state of meditation. A figure so serene it is almost ghostly, the white of the foaming water merging with Willie’s impeccable white Mediterranean-style shirt and trousers as the light of the sun shines through.
The ensuing dialogue between Braddock and Willie at night in the woods is like a simultaneous first and last breath dance.
Braddock:
Why didn’t you make a run for it when you had the chance?
Willie:
What for? You’d have found me again. Would’ve got the boy into trouble. I’m not scared.
Braddock:
You’ve gotta be.
Willie:
Why? ‘Cause everyone else is? ‘Cause you are?
Braddock: You don’t know…. Death…
Willie: is just a stage in the journey. We’re all gonna get there. No exceptions. Me and you and… it’s just a moment. We’re here. Then we’re not here. We’re somewhere else… maybe. And it’s as natural as breathing. Why should we be scared?… I was scared, at first. I was dead scared. I knew Corrigan would come after me one day… or send someone. I’ve had 10 years to get ready for this. I thought, and I read. Must’ve read a whole library of things. Amazing things. Amazing. In the end, the only thing that really worried me was that he’d send some rubbish after me. And I thought, if I got somebody good, somebody who could do the job proper, then I could do my bit.
Did you ever, um… Did you ever call yourself, uh, something like Walsh, uh, Wallace… something like that?
Braddock: Wallace maybe.
Willie: Yeah. Thought so. I met you once in the old days. Well, we was in the same room together. Yeah. I remembered you. You didn’t remember me though… What’s your real name?
Braddock: Braddock… Nothing I can do about this. You know that.
Willie: I read this in a magazine when John Lennon died:
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.”
You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ-AYW3H6Xc and read this superb review by Graham Fuller: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1115-the-hit-road-to-nowhere