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A hitman usually is an assassin who is hired to assassinate a target via contract killing.
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Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. For notable examples see Murder, Inc. and Mafia hitmen and see Blood Killers.
These are non-mafia killings, or attempted killings, that involved a hitman. In some of these cases the "hitman" was not necessarily a "professional" hitman, but a paid amateur.
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Hitmen have been at times been a notable part of crime film. A rise in such characters began in 1970s due to "mafia films" like The Godfather. A notable example from the 1980s is the final scene of Scarface, in which an assassination squad is sent to kill the protagonist, Tony Montana. In the early 1990s Jean Reno gained some attention as a hitman in The Professional.
In the mid-1990s to the 2000s several "offbeat" portrayals of hitmen arose. John Cusack plays a hitman named Martin Blank who attends his high school reunion in the comedy film Grosse Pointe Blank. Forest Whitaker portrayed an African American hitman influenced by Bushidō in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. In addition Jude Law, in Road to Perdition, played a hit man with a strong interest in photography.
A few portrayals of hit man have earned nominations or awards. In 1985 Jack Nicholson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing a hitman named Charley Partanna in Prizzi's Honor. Javier Bardem played a ruthless assassin in search of a lost cache of money in the Coen Brothers' 2008 Academy Award-winning film No Country for Old Men.
Also John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson portrayed as two hitmen in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino smash-hit film Pulp Fiction
The main character of the video game series Hitman was genetically engineered by a man called Dr. Ort-Meyer in an insane asylum in Romania. He is known only as Agent 47. 47 is highly regarded in the criminal underworld, so much that many consider him to be a myth. The gameplay revolves around infiltrating an area, executing a target (or targets), and escaping without apprehension. Although not compulsory, the Hitman games encourage the player to use stealth and cunningness to eliminate targets, as opposed to firepower. A film adaption was released in 2007, which deviated widely from its source material, and as such, was negatively received by fans. It was also confirmed that a fifth game would be in production.
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