Talk:Interview with a Hitman

Plot Description

Is this for real? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.79.96.4 (talk) 07:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Having just watched the film on Netflix, I'd argue that the woman that Victor is tasked with killing as a favor for the London mafia boss is not Bethesda, but the journalist he later spares who was writing an article on that same mob boss. Could anyone back that up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.185.7 (talk) 09:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Need Specifics - No original research, Neutral point of view, Verifiability

Issues raised are:

   No original research
   Neutral point of view
   Verifiability

It would be helpful get some specifics ie:

   No original research - which parts?
   Neutral point of view - Again which bits are being referred to?
   Verifiability - Which citations are being disputed.

From my point of view the article is informative, contributed to by quite a number of users, doesn't seem to be biased with all citations verifiable and from credible media outlets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eurosuper (talk • contribs) 14:12, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Issues with this Article

This article has numerous issues, stated in the template as follows: Sources from obscure/non-notable/dead sites. "Critically acclaimed" assertion not clearly justified. Poss. NPOV issues. Over-long and overly-detailed summary. Incorrect formatting, inconsistent character names.

NPOV / Cite Check

There is no evidence that the film is "critically acclaimed". It has an average score on IMDB and doesn't even feature on Metacritic, which are two of the more accepted scoring sites. Several of the reviews cited are dead links. Others are little more than single sentence synopses. Of the remainder most of them are from review sites that don't have Wikipedia articles, which suggests lack of notability.

All of the reviews are now live links (some of the pages had been moved). I've added a few more. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive and comprise a variety of sources from highly notable 'Daily Mail', Nuts Magazine, Fan Carpet, Bring the Noise to the less notable but nonetheless active reviewers whose opinions have either been sought or have felt the need to add the film to their catalogue of reviews and are in the business of reviewing notable films. In total 35 media outlets have reviewed the film (according to the IMDB list). None of the above suggests lack of notability. As for the critical acclaim, this is perhaps subjective and has been changed to reviews have been 'overwhelmingly positive'. Tomkinpop (talk) 20:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Original Research / Cleanup

The plot summary shows evidence of being written by an individual, rather than an officially released plot summary from a production studio or notable film site. The plot summary is over-long, overly detailed and has a number of spelling and typographical errors.

The changes log shows the plot description has evolved over time as Wikipedia users have contributed changes. The plot could do with tidying up and making more succinct. May give it a go if I get round to it! Tomkinpop (talk) 20:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

NPOV

The film appears to have had an extremely limited theatrical run, and as such could be classified as direct-to-video. As a result information for its Wikipedia page is likely to be limited, as is the case for many other smaller or independent movies. However, the current edit gives indications of being padded out to increase content, with additional sections like "Writer and Director" and "also known as" inserted that contain either unnecessary information or duplicate information from the infobox or elsewhere on the page.

The film was theatrically released in the UK and Ireland and Kuwait by Cinescape. Therefore given it was theatrically released it cannot be classified as direct-to video as that statement would be false. Removed duplicate info. Tomkinpop (talk) 20:33, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Summary

All of the above indicates fan-editing or promotion rather than an effort to produce neutral encylopedic content. Damage (talk) 12:35, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't agree with the above. It's a popular film that has had a worldwide release so it is natural that wikipedia members would want to contribute to it. Hopefully the changes I've made hopefully go some way to improve the article and its neutrality. Tomkinpop (talk) 20:32, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

The effort put into leaping to the defense of this movie does rather confirm the assertions made above. Some of the counter-arguments are pretty circular (a review site is notable because it reviews lots of movies?! Sure!) and the fairly transparent determination to force through an "overwhelmingly positive" moniker on a film that scores 5.7 on IMDB and has a rating of 45% (and no reviews whatosever) on Rotten Tomatoes confirms an effort to artificially promote this film.

Rather than devoting so much time to challenging these clearly-explained assessments and compounding the errors already in the article, a more profitable course of action might be to examine how other indie movie articles are constructed, rated and sourced.

Examine the article for the movie Drive, for example, whose 600 word plot synopsis fits into 8 paragraphs, unlike this articles' which is over twice as long. That movie was indeed critically acclaimed, and the article explains how and why.

And most importantly of all, and as is the case with the majority of movie articles on Wikipedia, it limits its review sources to five - the biggest, and most widely accepted. If this movie stands up against the yardstick of aggregate review sites IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo, Allmovie and Metacritic then it certainly earns an "acclaimed" tag. If it doesn't, then no amount of individual obscure reviews or wishful thinking will change that fact.Damage (talk) 05:56, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Decent attempt to update the article by Tomkinpop. Some objective guidance from an experienced Wikipedia editor would serve this discussion best moving forward.188.29.165.42 (talk) 14:47, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Um, ok, sure. Not really sure what that added, but thanks for the unbiased suggestion. Damage (talk)

Here's a pretty fine example of an indie movie article, with a sensible number of notable aggregate sources, correct layout and appropriate length. Summary needs expansion but otherwise it's a good reference. Damage (talk)

I added scores from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes in the critical reception section, as well as summarized one of the reviews cited.Neworderrr (talk) 19:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Excellent work, the IMDB and RT scores are a much-needed addition, and should hopefully lay to rest any "critically acclaimed" debate.

However, I'm not sure "The Fan Carpet" qualifies as a notable source, it doesn't have a Wiki article. Can you find a positive review from something a bit more mainstream?

I'm going to remove the first line of the CR section, since it doesn't actually offer any information, it just says "articles and reviews exist" (which is said as much in the following paragraph anyway). Since the Metacritic reference, by virtue of being an aggregate review site, can be used as a one-stop source for all of the reviews, I don't see the need to list them all individually. Damage (talk) 01:49, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Edits by Neworderr have been a good improvement on the article. I believe the critically acclaimed debate was put to rest prior to those edits.

I have reversed the recent major section removals by user damage as they only serve to conform the article to that users perspective of what it should consist of. This could be interpreted as bias. We need unbiased input from other experienced wikipedia editors.

I will add reviews from Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail and also Nuts Magazine to the fan carpet one as these sources have their own pages on wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomkinpop (talk • contribs) 03:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Reverted Edits

So, my cleanup edits on this article have just been reverted.

Here are some examples of the text that has been put back:

• "There are numerous articles about the films release, along with some reviews of the film."
• "It has gone on to sell in Major territories worldwide".

Adding lots of valuable insight, there.

Other additions include:

• Credits for two dozen minor characters who don't have Wikipedia articles.
• No less than twenty individual film distributors for different countries. Most movie articles have one.
• Two dozen references from individual - i.e. non agregate - websites, the majority of which are non-notable, despite the fact that aggregate review site Metacritic has already been referenced elsewhere on the page.

I'm really tired of trying to improve this article, to be honest, in the face of wilful attempts to pad out it out with superfluous, inappropriate, inaccurate or downright irrelevant information.

I will reveal one piece of pertinent information: I've discovered where all the positive review quotes, and all that unnecssary padding is coming from - it's been lifted from the official website for the film. Verbatim. The review sources are even in the same order. It would be funny if it wasn't so utterly transparent.

Sources for movie reviews lifted wholesale from the website who produce the film. I believe something was mentioned about "bias"?

I've got better things to do than get into an edit war over an minor indie film with a 50% rating, when these mythical "experienced" Wiki editors turn up I look forward to seeing what they make of the article as it currently stands. "Speedy delete" springs to mind. Meanwhile, others can fill it with blatant promotion and fan editing to their heart's content, I won't interfere. Life isn't long enough! :-) Damage (talk) 10:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Been following this and I think others may be tired of the misinformation being presented as fact. Misleading and unsubstantiated claims are not helpful.

A cursory glance at the official website reveals no such lifting of reviews verbatim. In fact there are no reviews or links to reviews, just lines / soundbytes from positive reviews that one would expect from an official website.

Also, a wikipedia article needs to be informative in and of itself. Verifiable citation is important. Reducing the article to a reference for the imdb page for the film is not the purpose of the wikipedia article. If it was then every wikipedia article on a film should simply consist of a few hyperlinks to Imdb and rotten tomatoes. Summary deletions as well as reducing the informative content of the article are also misleading. A case in point; deletion of distributors from 20 to just 3 would suggest to a reader that the film was just released in just 3 territories when in fact it was effectively released across the world in 20 territories.

Please also remember that this article was created by the longstanding and senior wikipedia editor Faizanalivary and has been contributed to by a number of Wikipedia users, myself included, whose efforts should be recognised, valued and not simply discarded at whim by a single user who has decided to take ownership of the article including now making spurious claims and calling for its deletion. I suppose in trying to keep the article as informative as possible, filled with citations to underpin the content is now interpreted as bias as well.

A look at the contribution history reveals much. My esteeemed colleague above has made edits to precisely two articles in their brief six month editing history of Wikipedia. One of them is the Interview With a Hitman article. The other is Interview With a Hitman's director. Perhaps this very focused behaviour might explain why my every effort to improve the article and bring it in-line with Wikipedia's very clearly defined and demonstrated styles and standards has been met with defensiveness and hostility.

Incidentally, referencing Faizanalivarya is an interesting choice, I had a look at the original article as produced by that editor and it's a considerable improvement on the current version. None of the irrelevant padding or non-notable and broken references had been added yet. That all came later when two other editors "took ownership" (if I may borrow one of your outrageous phrases) of the article and decided to copy-paste promotion from the film producer. Ah well, all this hostility and shameless attempts at promotion do make highly entertaining reading! Damage (talk) 09:34, 17 March 2014 (UTC)