A DANGEROUS MAN

The gore-drenched trilogy of a killer and his ill-gotten gains squishes to an end.

In Caught Stealing (2004), Henry Thompson got his hands on $4 million he certainly didn’t have clear title to, and as a result got his head handed to him by rival claimants. In Six Bad Things (2005), more disgruntled claimants showed up to inflict more punishment on Henry’s banged-up body. Prominent among the bangers was merciless and sanguinary Russian Mafia boss David Dolokhov. Not that Henry is any slouch in the homicide department himself. His Quietus Quotient has so impressed even bloody-minded David that the two have struck a Faustian bargain. When David maintains that the loot was stolen from him, Henry doesn’t argue, only, and truthfully, insisting that he doesn’t know what’s become of it. In that case, he’s informed, he now wears the livery of the House of David, meaning that Henry must kill whomever, wherever and whenever he’s ordered to. If he does, his beloved parents can remain alive. If not, well . . . and so Henry the unhappy hit-man is born. It turns out, however, that he’s a disappointment in the role. Though no great talent at murder-for-hire, he’s good enough to bring off a lethal, though telegraphed, biter-bit finale.

Maintains the unpleasantly sadistic violence that’s been a series hallmark, but not the stylistic panache.