The A.V. Club by Zack Handlen

The script by Peter Prince occasionally errs too much on the side of opacity, but the few revelations that do come are deftly handled. It’s a meditation on death, and in the end, it belongs to Hurt.

Variety

Frears and writer Peter Prince have taken a potentially familiar tale of a gangland betrayal and revenge and made something richly inventive and most entertaining.

Washington Post by Rita Kempley

A dexterously balanced killer thriller by the idiosyncratic Frears, whose every scene becomes a matter of life and death.

Los Angeles Times by Sheila Benson

The Hit is something special: thoughtful, perfectly performed and carrying the clear stamp of an extremely interesting director.

Variety by Staff (Not Credited)

Frears and writer Peter Prince have taken a potentially familiar tale of a gangland betrayal and revenge and made something richly inventive and most entertaining.

Miami Herald by Bill Cosford

Frears displays a complete mastery of the mechanics of a thriller, such that his movie is terrifying even when it pauses for breath. [08 Feb 1985, p.D8]

TV Guide Magazine

An offbeat, existential crime drama buoyed by fine performances; nicely turned dialogue; and an evocative soundtrack and theme song from Paco di Lucia and Eric Clapton, respectively.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott

Eventually, the film, shot on location in Spain by a director with an innate understanding of how to stylize without becoming self-conscious, asks to be seen as a comic but moving meditation on the ways we do, or do not, go gently into that good night. [05 Apr 1985]

TV Guide Magazine by Straff (Not Credited)

An offbeat, existential crime drama buoyed by fine performances; nicely turned dialogue; and an evocative soundtrack and theme song from Paco di Lucia and Eric Clapton, respectively.

Time Out

Hurt is in good vicious form as the shaded hit man; Stamp once more wears a smile like a halo; and the prospect of approaching death is handled without too much metaphysical puffing and blowing. All in all, a very palpable hit.

Time Out by Staff (Not Credited)

Hurt is in good vicious form as the shaded hit man; Stamp once more wears a smile like a halo; and the prospect of approaching death is handled without too much metaphysical puffing and blowing. All in all, a very palpable hit.

The New York Times by Vincent Canby

The Hit' is a disappointing English underworld movie directed by Stephen Frears. Less a film noir than a film gris, partly because almost all of it takes place in sun- drenched Spain and because the characters talk too much. These guys don't have to use guns. All they have to do is open their mouths and bore each other to death.