The Killer - Recap

Eddie Lorca is a contract killer waiting in his room for a call. A man calls and pays him $25,000 to set up a kill. Lorca rolls his lucky dice and tells the girl to get out.

Jim picks up his tape briefing and is informed that a man codenamed “Scorpio” has hired Lorca to kill someone, but no one knows who. The IMF must thwart the assassination and discover who Scorpio is. In the team briefing, the IMF review Lorca’s file and realize that he does everything at random based on the roll of the dice. To anticipate a man who never does the same thing twice, they have a “blank” hotel prepared but Barney warns they’ll need at least twenty minutes to prepare it.

Lorca gets off his flight and goes to catch a cab, but randomly decides to skip the first cab: Willy’s. However, Paris is in the second cab that Lorca takes. Lorca chooses a hotel at random from the phonebook and the rest of the team, listening in on a surveillance bug, go to work. Paris tries to convince Lorca it’ll take at least 20 minutes to get there, but Lorca points out the phone book ad says the hotel is 15 minutes from the hotel. Paris has no choice but to say he’ll get him there in 15 minutes rather than lose Lorca.

Working against the clock, the IMF labels everything at the hotel with the name that Lorca chose. Paris tries to drive slower but Lorca figures he’s trying to run out the meter and tells him to speed up or lose the fare. Willy sabotages a stoplight and then blocks the way with trucks, but each time Paris is forced to find a way around rather than lose Lorca.

Paris drops Lorca off at the IMF hotel just as they add the finishing touches. Jim is the manager and offers Lorca a room, but the assassin chooses a different one. Fortunately, Barney is upstairs ready and renumbers the room signs so Lorca ends up in the room they have prepared. Lorca doesn’t try to call anyone but just plays golf until he goes outside to make a call at a prearranged time. Fortunately the IMF have the phone booth bugged as well and get the phone number of Lorca’s contact. He sets up a meeting at his hotel room then goes back to his room. Paris then calls the contact, a woman, and impersonates Lorca’s voice to tell her he’s changed the meeting spot and she should go to a park. Meanwhile, Dana reviews the tape of the contact and practices her mimicry.

Paris goes to the park and pretends to be Lorca. He gets the information on the intended target: a local union leader staying at another hotel. Since the man is African-American, they have no choice but to use Barney as the bait, substituting his photo. They then give the information to Dana, who meets with Lorca. He suspects she’s not the person on the phone, but just as a pickup line to get her to have a drink. She flirts with him briefly but then turns him down cold and he tells her to get out.

Jim, Barney, and Willy get the union leader out of the hotel then bug his room phone and set up a Barney dummy as a target. Lorca leaves the hotel and Paris tails him but inadvertently loses him.

Lorca gets to the second hotel and makes a reservation to determine the room above Barney’s is empty. He then breaks into the room via the fire escape and calls Barney, pretending to be a local union member asking for a meeting. He sets up a time to meet with Barney (to make sure the target is in place), then wads up his golf balls: they’re made out plastic explosive, creating a shaped charge. He lowers the timed bomb down on a string through the ventilator shaft to Barney’s room and then calls again to make sure Barney is still there.

Lorca leaves, but fortunately Willy spots him. Lorca calls seconds before the bomb is to go off to make sure his target is in the right spot. Realizing that since Lorca has left the hotel, his plan is already in motion, Jim tells Barney to get out of the room. The bomb goes off but fortunately Barney is mostly clear and only gets knocked through the door. Lorca spots the explosion below and figure he’s succeeded.

Lorca then calls Dana to pick up his $25,000. However, an IMF car drives by and they fake gun-down Dana and take a few (fake) shots at Lorca. At it drives away, Lorca a discovers the money is fake and Dana says that Scorpio set them up before “dying.” A furious Lorca hails a cab (driven by Willy) and goes to a plush estate on the outskirts of town. He breaks in and shoots the owner: Scorpio. Scorpio manages to get a shot off and both men end up dead. Jim comes in and rolls out Lorca’s lucky dice one last time: snake-eyes. Then he and the others get out as the police arrive.


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