Everyone's a loser?

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)
Screenplay, Production, Direction: Aki Kaurismäki

When does a person consider himself a failure? Does it happen when he loses his job and is unable to sustain his existence? Or it happens when he realises that there is no future for him, nothing for him to live for? The path in front of him is just an abyss of nothingness with nothing to call his own. His life is hollow, and his interaction with others is just superficial acquaintances which end at the end of working hours or the break of dawn.

Is he a loser when he is unable to provide for his loved ones? Does he lose it when the curtain draws on him and the Maker prematurely call him in?

Set in the gloomy, dull days of the 70s in the United Kingdom when economic malaise was the order of the day and financial market was in the doldrums, it depicts the story of the Royal Water Works Board clerk who was retrenched. The Board is being privatised and the protagonist, Henri (Jea-Pierre Léaud, seen as a child actor in the classic French neo-realist film '400 Blows'), being a foreigner, is the first to go. A disappointed Henri, probably with other baggage that he must be carrying with him as he had run away from France, attempts suicide. He fails miserably. By chance, Henri encounters an article in the newspaper about hired killers. With his life savings, he employs them to kill him!

Along the way, he meets and falls in love with a flower girl. Suddenly, the zest for life is renewed. Life has a purpose now. Unfortunately, the agency that sends hire killers cannot be contacted, and a contract killer is on the prowl for his blood. Amidst the cat and mouse chase, we the audience, come to know that, even the hired assassin has a sob story to tell. The slayer feels he is a loser as he is dying from terminal lung cancer, his days are numbered and has a daughter that he has to depart soon.

In his own way, the storyteller paints a picture that everyone would perceive themselves to be a flop if there is nothing much to look forward to life. The next question is whose duty is it to pave a flawless path for us to follow? Is it our individual duties to plan our futures? Is it the role of our elected leaders to stimulate the economy so as its citizens can prosper? Does money solve everyone's problems?

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