“Black ops agent” or “wet boy” is internal CIA lingo for assassin. There have been loads of cold-blooded assassin movies—a random Google search immediately turned up: “Top 150 Assassin/Hitman Films & Shows - IMDb.” Not to mention the popular video game “Assassins” and others of its ilk.
However, movies about “morally reformed” assassins have been on the rise for some time now. The quotation marks indicate a relative concept; we’re not talking about priests here.There’s an overwhelming fascination with human killing-machines—that sheer destructive force. After all, what is the hugely popular “Terminator” but a time-traveling, mechanized assassin? When Arnold said “I'll be baaack” in 1984, he wasn’t kidding. Nobody expected him to be back, 31 years later, in IMAX and 3D.
However, it’s the current societal preoccupation with another community that also specializes in termination—special forces military operators—that has upgraded the cold-blooded assassin to the “morally reformed” assassin story.
In "John Wick," Keanu Reeves plays an ex-hitman. Thunder Road Pictures
