One of my guilty pleasures is to watch action movies about hitmen, and in particular hitmen who are female (hitwoman? hitperson?). The guilty part comes from the fact that I am a firm believer in the need for a strong rule of law, and it is impossible to make a film about a sympathetic hitman who doesn’t nonetheless break the law, often in bloody and flagrant ways. Indeed, this genre doesn’t just tolerate protagonists killing people, it positively celebrates them and turns them, for the most part, into heroes.
The pleasurable part is twofold. First, when the hitman is female, she is almost always striking back against a ugly male patriarchy that is expecting her to be, alternatively, a sexual object, weak, submissive, or some combination of the three. She doesn’t just defeat her male enemies in court like Julia Roberts in *Erin Brockovich*, she pounds them to a pulp, guts them, or scratches out their eyeballs.
The other pleasurable aspect, if that is the right adjective, is related to the first: in these movies, justice is done. The 2018 movie *Peppermint*, for example, begins with a sweet suburban housewife (played by Jennifer Gardner) whose entire family is gunned down because her husband got into trouble with a Mexican narco gang. She disappears for several years to train, and returns as an avenging angel who takes on (and kills) the cartel boss and most of his associates.
One of the earliest films in this genre was the 1994 movie *Léon: The Professional*, starring a very young Natalie Portman as Mathilda. Mathilda’s dysfunctional family is killed by a rogue NYPD detective and his cronies. She is adopted by a not-so-bright neighbor, Léon (Jean Reno), who, after repeated entreaties, teaches her how to shoot a sniper rifle. While it is Leon who eventually kills the corrupt policemen, he is driven to this by Mathilda’s single-minded determination to extract revenge.
Justice isn’t always at play in these movies. Sometimes you simply end up admiring the skill and resolve of the lead character. This is the case with one of my favorite movies in this niche genre, *Kate*, set in Japan where the bad guys are yakuza. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the eponymous hitman Kate, raised from childhood by her mentor Verrick (Woody Harrelson) to be a paid killer. She is double-crossed by Verrick and poisoned with a radioactive substance which leaves her only 24 hours of life in which to extract revenge. She goes up against a yakuza family with incredible efficiency, shooting her way up the ranks and displaying unbelievable martial arts skills before expiring at the movie’s end.
Indeed, a complex martial arts sequence is *de rigeur* in this type of movie (as in all action movies), in which the heroine is jumped by a crowd of burly men whom she singlehandedly kills or disables. To a much greater extent than in movies with a male lead, these sequences defy the laws of physics: no matter how well-trained, a woman jumped by six armed men twice her size and weight is very unlikely to survive such an attack. But it is the demonstration of female physical prowess that makes the outcome so satisfying to a certain demographic. Other movies in this genre include the 2020 *Ava* and the 2024 *Trigger Warning*. (For a male version of the same thing, see Denzel Washington’s three *Equalizer* movies.)
There is a more ideological feminist theme running through some of these films. The 2021 movie *Gunpowder Milkshake* depicts a multi-generational underground organization of well-armed women who take revenge on the male power structure. In the tongue-in-cheek final sequence, the women and men literally shoot it out with pistols, assault rifles, and crew-served weapons until all the male oppressors are dead. Several women end up dead or wounded as well, but as in conventional action movies have the fortitude to dig the bullets out of their own bodies and keep fighting.
Acentooate on
Kind of astonishing that across this entire article an extremely key genre and aspect was just completely ignored: Rape revenge and common theme of sexual assault against women. Women getting their family massacred and grabbing a gun and going on a revenge kill spree is refreshing to the author, because it’s a male trope done by women.
But the flip side is the much more common, but even more routinely ignored crimes by the justice system which are sex crimes. Movies like the ″I Spit On Your Grave″ series, American Mary, and Promising Young Woman are much more oriented towards women as revenge movies, because they are actually relatable.
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One of my guilty pleasures is to watch action movies about hitmen, and in particular hitmen who are female (hitwoman? hitperson?). The guilty part comes from the fact that I am a firm believer in the need for a strong rule of law, and it is impossible to make a film about a sympathetic hitman who doesn’t nonetheless break the law, often in bloody and flagrant ways. Indeed, this genre doesn’t just tolerate protagonists killing people, it positively celebrates them and turns them, for the most part, into heroes.
The pleasurable part is twofold. First, when the hitman is female, she is almost always striking back against a ugly male patriarchy that is expecting her to be, alternatively, a sexual object, weak, submissive, or some combination of the three. She doesn’t just defeat her male enemies in court like Julia Roberts in *Erin Brockovich*, she pounds them to a pulp, guts them, or scratches out their eyeballs.
The other pleasurable aspect, if that is the right adjective, is related to the first: in these movies, justice is done. The 2018 movie *Peppermint*, for example, begins with a sweet suburban housewife (played by Jennifer Gardner) whose entire family is gunned down because her husband got into trouble with a Mexican narco gang. She disappears for several years to train, and returns as an avenging angel who takes on (and kills) the cartel boss and most of his associates.
One of the earliest films in this genre was the 1994 movie *Léon: The Professional*, starring a very young Natalie Portman as Mathilda. Mathilda’s dysfunctional family is killed by a rogue NYPD detective and his cronies. She is adopted by a not-so-bright neighbor, Léon (Jean Reno), who, after repeated entreaties, teaches her how to shoot a sniper rifle. While it is Leon who eventually kills the corrupt policemen, he is driven to this by Mathilda’s single-minded determination to extract revenge.
Justice isn’t always at play in these movies. Sometimes you simply end up admiring the skill and resolve of the lead character. This is the case with one of my favorite movies in this niche genre, *Kate*, set in Japan where the bad guys are yakuza. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the eponymous hitman Kate, raised from childhood by her mentor Verrick (Woody Harrelson) to be a paid killer. She is double-crossed by Verrick and poisoned with a radioactive substance which leaves her only 24 hours of life in which to extract revenge. She goes up against a yakuza family with incredible efficiency, shooting her way up the ranks and displaying unbelievable martial arts skills before expiring at the movie’s end.
Indeed, a complex martial arts sequence is *de rigeur* in this type of movie (as in all action movies), in which the heroine is jumped by a crowd of burly men whom she singlehandedly kills or disables. To a much greater extent than in movies with a male lead, these sequences defy the laws of physics: no matter how well-trained, a woman jumped by six armed men twice her size and weight is very unlikely to survive such an attack. But it is the demonstration of female physical prowess that makes the outcome so satisfying to a certain demographic. Other movies in this genre include the 2020 *Ava* and the 2024 *Trigger Warning*. (For a male version of the same thing, see Denzel Washington’s three *Equalizer* movies.)
There is a more ideological feminist theme running through some of these films. The 2021 movie *Gunpowder Milkshake* depicts a multi-generational underground organization of well-armed women who take revenge on the male power structure. In the tongue-in-cheek final sequence, the women and men literally shoot it out with pistols, assault rifles, and crew-served weapons until all the male oppressors are dead. Several women end up dead or wounded as well, but as in conventional action movies have the fortitude to dig the bullets out of their own bodies and keep fighting.
Kind of astonishing that across this entire article an extremely key genre and aspect was just completely ignored: Rape revenge and common theme of sexual assault against women. Women getting their family massacred and grabbing a gun and going on a revenge kill spree is refreshing to the author, because it’s a male trope done by women.
But the flip side is the much more common, but even more routinely ignored crimes by the justice system which are sex crimes. Movies like the ″I Spit On Your Grave″ series, American Mary, and Promising Young Woman are much more oriented towards women as revenge movies, because they are actually relatable.