Gary Daniels is about to shoot you. One pistol at a time.
Skin Traffik (AKA A Hitman in London) is a 2015 crime film directed by Ara Paiaya and starring Mickey Rourke, Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen.
An assassin by the name of Bradley Smith (Gary Daniels) saves a prostitute from a sadistic pimp. Driven by a desire to help the woman save her sister, Bradley pursues the other Human Traffickers, only to discover that they are in league with his former employer.
Due to the number of reveals within the film, be wary of unmarked spoilers.
Some tropes just have it coming:
- Accidental Murder: Bradley accidentally shooting the daughter of a mob boss in his Action Prologue. Worse of all, she happens to be pregnant at the time of her death.
- Asshole Victim: The film portrays anyone involved in human trafficking as worthy of death, but the following are the most notable.
- Sergei and his henchmen are pimps who abuse women and antagonize Bradley. They later meet a bitter end at Bradley's hands.
- Zhanna pressures a barmaid into working as a prostitute, only to by shot by the Boss because she is hindering the operation.
- The Executive himself has his brains splattered after Bradley confronts him for his involvement in the operation.
- Boom, Headshot!: The Executive dies when Bradley puts a bullet in his brain.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The Executive considers human trafficking to just be business as usual for him and his organization.
- Diabolical Mastermind: The Executive is a major figure in the criminal underworld, with involvement in various international assassination, extortion, and human trafficking rackets.
- Dramatic Irony: Bradley had no intention of killing Vogel's daughter. However, while threatening to kill Vogel's daughter was a bluff, he had already killed her without intending to while killing other armed personnel.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: While escaping a group of traffickers, Bradley detonates a car with a few well placed shots.
- Evil Is Hammy: Every line from the mouth of the Executive is performed in an over the top smarmy and sleazy fashion, in line with his role as a criminal who, among other things, profits off of forced prostitution.
- Evil Sounds Deep: The evil Executive's voice is very deep and sonorous. Courtesy of Eric Roberts.
- Femme Fatale: Downplayed, but it's still there; Zhanna is shown using her natural charisma to manipulate a barmaid into becoming a prostitute. Unfortunately, the Boss does not appreciate that Zhanna is using her feminine wiles to recruit when their business is in danger, so he kills her.
- Helicopter Blender: An unfortunate mook gets blended into human salsa when Bradley shotguns him into the air... through the spinning rotor of a helicopter.
- Heroic Bloodshed: Has various elements inspired by this genre. Such as a Hitman with a Heart protagonist, a Mexican Stand Off between Bradley and the Executive, loads and loads of faceless mooks, Bradley executing Unnecessary Combat Roll during shootouts (especially the whorehouse shootout mid-movie), Gray-and-Gray Morality between characters, and the like. Surprisingly, the movie averts the common trope of characters using dual guns in these type of movies, despite the poster above saying otherwise.
- Hitman with a Heart: Bradley may be a tough assassin, but he is willing to stick his neck out to try and save a prostitute and her sister from a horrible fate.
- Human Traffickers: The Boss, Zhanna, and the Executive are all involved in selling women's bodies for profit. Sergei is more directly involved in forcing the women into slavery.
- Large and in Charge: The Boss is one of the most physically imposing of the human traffickers, and as his title would indicate, he directs a human trafficking operation on behalf of the Executive. Ironically, he never confronts Bradley face to face, and therefore it is never determined whether his size is to his advantage or not.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: The Executive prefers expensive suits and furnishings, both of which are presumably funded by his criminal lifestyle involving murder and forced prostitution.
- Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Sergei and his henchmen are slavic mobsters who force women into prostitution.
- Sex Slave: The Human Trafficking organization profits off of forcing women into prostitution.
- Sequel Hook: The movie ends with the mob leader threatened by Bradley early in the film, whose daughter he accidentally killed when making his escape, ordering another hit on Bradley. Cue credits.
- Unsafe Haven: The Executive deliberately compromises the hideout to which he led Bradley and Anna, seeing them as liabilities.
