MovieChat Forums > Sorcerer (1977) Discussion > The Hitman's motivation

The Hitman's motivation


Why does he feel the need to be a part of this dangerous mission? He shows up in town well-dressed, well-financed, paying off their police, waiting out his days more comfortably than the others. Why does he take the risk? Is it ego? I mean, he cuts the other guy's throat to take his place...

reply

I agree but have no answer to it.

There are some other plot-holes in the script, but may be this is due to the version I saw today ( cut to 115 min)

In this 115 min version:
We are not shown how the first truck made the sharp turn over the wooden bridge.
We are also not shown when the party of the first truck leaves a message on a piece of paper the second party then finds.
Also we are not introduced to the romance between the bar-maid and scheider. She just appears when he is about to leave.

Fortunately I saw the classic version of the story (wages of fear, 1953) just a week ago so I was able to fill some blanks.

reply

We see the barmaid early on in the movie and there was no romance between her and Scheider. Scheider took pity on her dreadful situation and tried to bring her a little joy by doing something that probably no had done in years, asking her to dance. Good god, she was homely as mud fence, do you really think he had a romance with her?

reply

I disagree with that. Beauty is relative. At first he may have thought like you but then after being there for so long and having gone through the horrible mission she must have seemed like salvation of some kind.


we shook our fists at the punishing rain
& WE CALLED UPON THE AUTHOR TO EXPLAIN!!!!!

reply

I think he was after Scanlon (Scheider) but must have had some other sinister side to watch him suffer during the truck ride. Or perhaps he was in hiding for the hit he did in Vera Cruz. But why does he rent that room for a week?
But he seem to have money. We will probably we no answer to this.

reply

[deleted]

Probably he was just there to kill the Nazi officer. In order to save his life he volunteered to be part of crew. Most likely he didn't know how risky the job was.

reply

The movie showed him to be a pretentious coward. It's doubtful he had any real money with him. He was just as desperate as the other characters imho.

reply

I think he was there to kill Roy Scheider. So he expects that one week is enough
When he realizes that Scheider will go to the mission he is afraid that he will slip away so he wants to follow him.
Both he and the 2nd killer wear clean white shoes when they arrive and camera focus there, maybe this could be an indication that they have something common...

reply

My guess is the mob wouldnt pay him to just take out Scanlon , they wanted him to locate him and they would then do the hit.

the hitman found him, then stayed with him to make sure he didnt leave and was alive for when the mob's own hitmen arrived. He probably didnt bargain or want to be on the nitro delivery job but what can you do.

Of course as usual movies make it that the mob has limitless powers and limitless money which is laughable -especially for sounded like more of a local mob at the beggining of the movie.

we shook our fists at the punishing rain
& WE CALLED UPON THE AUTHOR TO EXPLAIN!!!!!

reply