Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday’ on Hulu, A VOD-Style Actioner With Scott Adkins

Scott Adkins is back as a mishap-making assassin in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday (now on Hulu), the sequel to 2018’s enjoyably malevolent Accident Man that switches directors from Jesse V Johnson to the Kirby Brothers, brings back a few other faces from the first film – namely, anybody who survived – and amps up the frequent fight sequences w/ lots of shticky violence. 

ACCIDENT MAN: HITMAN’S HOLIDAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: What kind of shticky violence? Well, how about a professional assassin whose calling card is his full clown makeup and lack of pain receptors? Yes, the bizarre, murderous, literal clown show that is Poco (Beau Fowler) is just one of the independent killer contractors Mike (Scott Adkins) must take down in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday if he wants to save his own neck and keep his burgeoning assassin-for-hire LLC afloat in Malta, the temperate Mediterranean nation he landed in after the London-based events of Accident Man. “Yeah, it’s a dirty job,” Mike says in voiceover as he uses explosives to dispatch an Ibiza-style DJ but make it look like a fluke. “But in case you’ve forgotten, I’m happy to get my hands bleeding filthy for the right price.” 

It was the same rap in Accident Man. All of the professional killers in Mike’s world come with personal flourishes – he makes a hit look like an accident, Poco is Bozo but with a cinder block hammer, etc. – and they all know each other, too. So when Dante (George Fouracres), the spoiled brat son of feared Maltese crime lord Mrs. Zuuzer (Flaminia Cinque), is suddenly the target of a lucrative international contract, Valletta starts filling up with killers on the prowl. There’s Yendi (Faisal Muhammed), who drinks the blood of his marks; Freya du Preeze (Zara Phythian), a munitions expert; the infamous Ninjitsu master Oyumi (Andreas Nguyen); and Silas (Peter Lee Thomas), a pretty boy strangler from San Francisco.

Mike and his pal Fred (Perry Benson) – Fred is another first film hitman holdover; his deal is elaborate killer contraptions – never wanted anything to do with the Dante contract, Mrs. Zuuzer, or her goons. But one thing leads to another and suddenly Mike and his new ally Siu-ling (Sarah Chang) are playing babysitter and protector to Dante as every killer in town comes at them simultaneously. And that includes Big Ray (Ray Stevenson), the father figure/assassin biz mentor Mike thought he’d left behind in London.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Scott Adkins has worked hard to become a highlight of the VOD action film industry. There’s real charisma to match his formidable fighting skills, with recent examples including both Debt Collector films, which he made with Accident Man director Jesse V. Johnson. But Adkins is also a standout in something like the Jaime Foxx-led Day Shift, where the professional killers are still eccentric, but they slay vampires instead.    

Performance Worth Watching: Beyond its fight sequences, Hitman’s Holiday is defined by little moments of character or weirdness, which is why it’s fun to watch Flaminia Cinque elevate her stock crime lord role with stylish menace and a handful of delicious line reads. “Intercept and kill whoever is trying to take my figlio from me!” 

Memorable Dialogue: Clinque as Mrs. Zuuzer isn’t alone in this. Ray Stevenson makes Big Ray lines like “You left me with five fifths of fuck all!” ring with robust English thuggery, Sarah Chang deftly inserts Cantonese language pejoratives – “puk gai,” “gweico” – into her back-and-forth with Adkins, and at one point Dante (played with goofy sloppiness by English comedian George Fouracres) says Mike resembles “a fucking melted Ben Affleck.”  

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: What worldbuilding that occurs in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday is really just a frame on which to hang fight sequences, which kick off early on with Scott Adkins and Sarah Chang hurling themselves bodily through the furniture in Mike’s Maltese bachelor pad and don’t relent until the titular accident man has faced each of his hitperson opponents and their characters’ assorted gimmickry. Animated stills even introduce these foes, which is awkward because as a stylistic touch it occurs nowhere else, but is allowable because it’s become standard for a certain type of film. The animation stuff exists here, like the briefest of backstories for Mrs. Zuuzer and her cabal of goons, as just another switch to engage more fighting, which is where Hitman’s Holiday shines.  

Like Adkins himself, Chang and the actors playing Yendi and Silas all have real world experience with the martial arts, stunt work, and fitness training, and this is a boon for fight sequences that involve sweeping kicks, elaborate throws, flurries of punches, and assorted bodies being tossed into and through available scenery and props. Edits and utaways are limited – this is really them doing the battling – and that lends an authentic physicality to a movie that basically becomes a giant multi-challenger melee for most of its finale. And as for the cartoonish flair of some of this action, it’s sometimes a hoot, but mostly offers a mild distraction between the straightforward fisticuffs of the fight choreo. What the worldbuilding stuff here does succeed in doing is deepen the relationship between Mike and Big Ray just enough, so that Scott Adkins and Ray Stevenson are almost sure to return for another round of Accident Man lore.   

Our Call: STREAM IT. Scott Adkins fans will line up for Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday, as it’s his fighting skills and charm that are the highlight. But the world this film builds for itself is sound enough to stay upright between extended bouts of kicking and punching. 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges