Bradley Stryker’s Holiday Hitman is a pleasant Christmas action comedy, with not much on its mind but serving up standard gags with a minimum of friction. The one thing that makes it slightly different from predecessors like Silent Night, Deadly Night (on the low end) and Die Hard (on the high) is that it’s about a Black family. Which doesn’t, as it turns out, make that much difference—except when it does.
Hank Carter (Nick Sagar) is an ethical hitman who kills bad guys during the day and pretends he’s an accountant when he’s home at night. Unfortunately, per many a superhero narrative, his wetwork is encroaching on his civilian identity, and his wife Jenny (Montana Manning) is just about on her last nerve. To save his relationship, he promises to be fully present on Christmas Eve. His standard issue sweaty borderline megalomaniac mob boss Mordecai (Julio César Cedillo) isn’t having it, and soon things escalate out of control, with holiday festivities interrupted by homicidal elves, bunnies, and other Yule-themed assassins.
The conflicts and fights are all rote, though elevated by Sagar’s considerable charm. Jenny’s attractive ex Clive (Ricky Norwood) shows up for an overly suggestive game of twister; Mordecai’s homicidal daughter Delilah (Eloise Lovell Anderson) comes strutting in at the end to up the stakes; there are miscommunications and moments of sexiness juxtaposed with moments of bad comedy. It’s a shame that the fight choreography is as uninventive as the rest of the script. There isn’t even a garroting with Christmas lights.
The movie doesn’t talk about race at all; the Carters are a typical cute middle-class family with typical troubles and a typical assassin dad, who just happen to be Black. And yet, even though it’s not mentioned or discussed, race inevitably inflects the narrative. When Mordecai makes preposterous demands that Hank put his employer and work above his own family, even at Christmas, that can’t help but call to mind a long history, in life and in film, from Gone With The Wind to Casablanca in which Black people have been portrayed as having no family or meaningful connections outside of those who employ and/or enslave them.
Similarly, when a white sex worker, Jaynee (Florence Hall) shows up at the door, Jenny’s jealousy is inflected by a culture in which white women are supposed to be more desirable and more attractive. Hank’s worries about Clive resonate with the fact that lighter-skinned guys traditionally get the girl.
These are all dynamics and plot beats that could be run in much the same way if the movie had cast white actors in the main roles. But the fact is that Stryker chose Black actors, and as a result the standard ideas about choosing family over work and choosing one’s partner over alternatives also mean that Black characters are choosing Black family over non-Black bosses, and romantic partners. By casting Black actors, the movie becomes in part about the value of Black stories, Black families, and Black lives, in contrast to Hollywood’s default, historical, overwhelming preference for white actors, and for scripts in which white people and choosing whiteness as natural and inevitable.
There are reasons to be skeptical of representation that isn’t thematized. How much difference does it make if you simply swap in a Black assassin/middle-class dad for a white one? And it’s true; Holiday Hitman isn’t, and isn’t intended to be, a courageous or groundbreaking film. But nonetheless, by giving Black actors jobs, it tells a story about whose stories matter, about who gets to prioritize their family, about who’s attractive and skilled, about who you should root for and identify with.
Holiday films, like It’s A Wonderful Life or Die Hard, tell us who’s at the center of cultural ritual, who’s normal and whose normality is worth defending. As a result, making a silly, cheerful holiday film with Black people at its center is meaningful. Holiday Hitman isn’t a great or must-see film. But it’s entertaining, and it does, unlike most such movies, have something worth saying.