Mike Fallon, the Accident Man, has left the country and gone to Malta for the easy life. Not so fast… There his old friend surfaces, he ends up taking a job protecting a mafia boss’ son and fighting a few of the most dangerous killers in the world.
This follow-up is written by Scott Adkins and Stu Small and directed by George and Harry Kirby, credited as the Kirby Brothers, and it’s a whole lot of fun. It’s not the most intelligent of film, it has some issues, but it’s fun. It’s a popcorn film without the massive budget, but as most people watching it will be coming to it to see Adkins kick people in the head, it delivers as expected. The story is fairly simple, more or less an excuse for fight scenes, but it works. This film is made the entertain action film fans and comes from minds used to this so it works. The characters are a little thin in most cases, but they work for their purpose. The story is not exactly filled with surprises or twist, it goes as expected: Set-up, starting event, bad guy fight, win, bad guy fight, win, rinse, repeat, happy ending. The thing is, this is exactly why people watch these films and this one works. It’s fun, it has good fights, the characters are interchangeable in most cases, but no one really cares about that.
The cast here is brought in to give Adkins reasons and people to fight. And he does and he does it well. Adkins knows what he can do and he knows to bring it to the screen at this point. His work here is as expected, so fans should love it. He also has a bit of humor in this one, adding to his usual brooding parts. Fans of the first will love his work her, fans of his fighting style will love it here too. This is a less serious Adkins, but it’s still usual Adkins. The cast here brings back Perry Benson as Finicki Fred and Ray Stevenson as Big Ray. Both bring the expected, Stevenson great to see as usual (and that facial hair, it’s glorious). The other fighters here include Sarah Chang who is highly enjoyable and seems to be enjoying hitting, kicking, and fighting Adkins. The rest of the cast is fun, nothing seriously wrong and nothing seriously exceptional, but really fun nonetheless.
Visually, the film is well-shot with cinematography by Richard C Bell, allowing the viewer to get some really nice shots of Malta and some clear shots of all the fights. Mid-range budget action is where it’s at usually for this kind of things, good action with camera work that allows the viewers to see it, and this film is right there with it. The editing by the Kirby Brothers works well with this. What works is little less well but is easily forgiven are the visual effects. It’s easy to understand why a film would use cg fire, but it’s still not what it needs to be. Other composites are also needed a bit more work, but they are not the main focus here, so meh.
Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday is a fun follow-up to Accident Man, it’s cartoony at times which works, it has some fun fights, fans of Scott Adkins get to have a good time watching him kick people in the head, there’s a bunch of nonsense that is appropriate here, and we get to see epic facial hair courtesy of Ray Stevenson.