Web Video / Hit It

Matt: What are you doing up there?
John: Well...I was going to commit suicide.
Matt: Oh. (Beat) Any chance you could not do that?

Hit It is a 24-minute Short Film directed and co-written by Thomas "TomSka" Ridgewell, released in November 2012 as his final project for the University of Lincoln. The film was released after going through a re-filming, as the original version was lost alongside about £3,500 worth of stuff that was in a bag Tom left on a train.

The film opens on a man named John about to jump off a building before being stopped by an optimistic man named Matt. After getting John off the ledge, Matt takes him to a bar where John recounts the full story of how he wound up on that ledge.

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Contains examples of the following tropes:

• And Your Little Dog, Too!: Near the end of the film, John gets a call from someone who threatens that if John doesn't turn himself in, they will brutally kill Zoey before hunting him down. This threat is what motivates John to attempt suicide.
• Art Shift: A montage of John and Zoey's dates is shown through a series of stylized still frames against color-corrected backgrounds, interchanging between the two together and John killing someone.
• Audience Surrogate: Matt, who is experiencing the story in real time, as is the audience, and will likely have similar reactions to events in the story.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: John's motivation for getting on that ledge in the first place, since he got a call from someone who knew of his work as a hitman and threatened to kill him and his girlfriend if he didn't turn himself in.
• Bolivian Army Ending: The film ends with John ordering Matt to get under the table as he engages in a giant Mexican Standoff with all of the "resources" that were sent in to hunt him down.
• Book Ends: The park scene starts and ends with Zoey doing a Stealth Hi/Bye.
• Boom, Headshot!: John's preferred way of executing targets.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: After receiving that phone call, John stayed up all night thinking, had some breakfast, and decided to kill himself.
• Chekhov's Gun: During the fight scene, John throws a toaster at his attacker, and then uses it to stun the attacker when he puts John in a chokehold.
• Creator Cameo: Downplayed. There's no appearance from Tom himself, but his famous "dubstep sunglasses" music plays during the fight scene.
• Department of Redundancy Department: After John helps Zoey (who locked herself out) and gets invited in to her place for a drink, she lists the options: "Water, tea...water."
• Despair Event Horizon: John at the start of the film, considering our introduction to him is of him about to jump off a building. At that time, he also felt like suicide was his only choice.
• The Ditz: Zoey certainly feels like this at times. For one, she thought that Googling just "John" would get her information about John.
• Double Tap: After shooting the man in the bathroom of the restaurant at his dinner date, John walks up to him and shoots him two more times.
• Heroic Suicide: By the end of the film, John's suicide attempt can be viewed in this light, considering John was being threatened to turn himself in or have Zoey killed and then have himself be hunted down.
• Improbable Weapon User: During a fight, John ends up using a nearby lamp to try and fend off his attacker. It doesn't boot.
• Interrupted Suicide: What starts the film and the plot.
• Musicalis Interruptus: John and Zoey's date montage ends abruptly with a sudden cut back to current John.
• Oh, Crap!: John's reaction when he gets a call from someone that not only knows about his string of killings, but about Zoey.
• Once More, with Clarity: Near the start, we are shown a scene of John doing his daily evening routine. After we learn that John's a hitman, that same scene is shown again but with more context. For example, what looked like John washing his hands was actually John cleaning blood off of something.
• The Power of Love: One of John's motives for suicide was that he saw that it was Better to Die than Be Killed in the sense that Zoey wouldn't have to be brutally murdered.
• The Reveal: Halfway through the film, we discover that John's a hitman.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Matt tries to leave after John confesses his profession as a hitman, but John forces him to stay.
• Shout-Out: Some of the editing in the film is very influenced by Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (reportedly one of Tom's favorite films), namely the yellow captions that appear every now and then describing the scene, and the moment when Zoey and John have their first kisses and 8-bit music starts playing.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Zoey does this at the start and end of the scene in the park, with her materializing on the bench next to John between cuts, and then disappearing abruptly, even with a popping sound.
• Stunned Silence: Matt after John tells him that at his first date with Zoey, he killed a man.
• That Came Out Wrong: At Zoey and John's first dinner date, John asks Zoey what she likes to do for pleasure. When she starts giggling, John gets the cue to reword his question to what she does in her free time.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: When John is attacked by a masked assailant, the ensuing fight ends with John shooting the attacker in the stomach not once, not twice, but eight times.
• The Unapologetic: John is not at all abashed in telling a complete stranger about his job as a hitman, and feels/exhibits no remorse in stating that he kills people for a living. When he shoots the guy in the bathroom of the restaurant, he sure as hell doesn't look sorry.
• Unreliable Narrator: Brought up briefly.
  Matt: How do I even know you're telling the truth?
  John: You don't.
• Wham Line: A rather blunt and unapologetic one from John.
  "I kill people. For money."
• Wham Shot:
  • A more literal case, when a man innocently leaves the restaurant, only to be suddenly gunned down by John.
  • The shot of a gun non-discreetly hidden away in John's blazer that is revealed as John turns and raises his arm to get a waiter's attention.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After John dwells on his profession as a hitman, Matt tries talking sense into him and what terrible things he's doing.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Matt starts off as one, but after John admits to being a hitman, he gets a harsh reality check.

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