Hit Big (2022)
Original title (in Finnish): Hetki lyö
Plot summary
Costa del Sol, Spain. Present day. Events begin to unfold in Bar Belle, now past its prime after pushing drinks to Finnish tourists for decades. Its hostess Marjaleena, 60, the 1981 Miss Finland Beauty Pageant Second Princess and her handyman Mikko, 60, have spent the past twenty years merrily liberating drinks from the bar’s supply. Alcohol has befogged and blurred off all griefs, worries, and reflections in the mirror. Along with this sudden turn of events, raw all-exposing daylight starts to force its way into their world.
Marjaleena gets word that her husband Worm is to be released from prison and coming back after twenty years. Marjaleena, Mikko, and Marjaleena’s son Vili, 30, receive the news with mixed feelings. Criminal earnings would interest Worm’s former right-hand man Mikko whereas Vili, still searching for himself, has not seen his father since his own tenth birthday. Marjaleena is afraid of her violent husband.
Jormanainen, an administrator Worm has sent ahead of him, brings Marjaleena only bad news. Bar Belle will be closed down and Marjaleena moved to the edge of the town to live on a meagre weekly allowance. The whole world collapses. Marjaleena feels cheated. For twenty years she has faithfully waited for her husband and this is the reward she gets, to be shifted aside.
During a drunken night Mikko accidentally shows up just when Jormanainen and his cronies carry out sackfuls of money dug out from under Bar Belle’s floor, Worm’s loot from a heist twenty years back. Mikko follows Jormanainen and the money to a house in an upscale suburb. Mikko sees the person living in it, “a slutty-looking woman”, as he describes the occupant to Marjaleena. Vexed by the news and fiercely drunk, Marjaleena demands to be taken to the house to clarify the situation. Instead of clarity, a mess ensues.
The person living in the house is Ninja, Worm’s former cell mate and current lover waiting for a sex reassignment surgery. The loot from the heist is not found, but Marjaleena and Mikko end up kidnapping Ninja with Vili’s assistance.
Ninja is taken to Mikko’s camper trailer on the edge of the town. Vili makes a million-euro ransom call and Marjaleena holds guard while Mikko and Vili go out to get accessories for the big job. While the tied-up Ninja and wine-slurping Marjaleena talk, uncertainty and fear for Worm’s return grows in both.
In the plan devised by Mikko, the retrieval of the ransom money is done by wading through rats, sewer sludge, and bags of garbage. Amazingly, after several torturous stages, the improbable plan works. Vili and Mikko flee back to the camping trailer, garbage bags full of money.
Very soon they discover that they have been cheated. The bags are full of play money, and a tracer has been taped to one of the bundles. Jormanainen arrives with two Albanian mafiosos. Mikko hides Marjaleena, Vili, and Ninja into a secret compartment. But is now alone at the mercy of his trackers. Jormanainen grills Mikko about his associates, asking if Ninja is also in it. Mikko’s evasive answers and lies do not satisfy him. Jormanainen calls Worm for further instructions. On Worm’s orders the men start to torture Mikko, who very soon dies of heart failure due to his poor condition. The killers leave, and the survivors emerge from their hideout into the dark of the night. Vili is grief-stricken, Marjaleena in shock, Ninja fearful. Ninja says that he knows where the real money is and suggests that instead of fleeing they go and get the fucking dough.
Another heist follows with a new threesome. Ninja, Vili and Marjaleena abduct Jormanainen and take him to the house where Ninja lives. Jormanainen refuses to reveal the code to the garage where the money is hidden. The situation escalates: Ninja starts to cut off Jormanainen’s scalp. A gunshot interrupts the scalping. Vili has been shot, and the shooter is Worm now coming down the stairs. Pointing with his gun, Worm asks what each of them wants. Manipulates, tests, plays with them. Like a cat with a mouse caught between its paws.
The film culminates in a car trip. Ninja and Jormanainen remain in the house, stuck in a pool of superglue. Marjaleena drives the car while gun-toting Worm issues route instructions. On the back seat, Vili grows weaker moment by moment. The hour of reckoning has come. During the trip along back roads Worm’s words reveal that they are not heading for the airport, or the hospital. Marjaleena decides to sacrifice herself. Orders Vili to fasten his seatbelt. Drives into a telephone pole. Marjaleena regains consciousness in the wrecked car, surprised at not being killed. Worm is dead, Vili is alive. Marjaleena helps Vili far away from the car, notices that banknotes billow out of the suitcases flung from the car. Marjaleena asks Vili to stop any car that may drive past. Marjaleena runs over to pick up the money. Vili notices an approaching car, raises his thumb.
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