Hitman

IN A CITY with a real-life gun problem, ads glorifying gun violence to sell movies can be particularly sickening. So we're glad to report that some in City Hall are taking it personally and saying, "Enough is enough. " Billboards and SEPTA bus ads for the movie "Hitman" went up a few weeks ago. They show a man pointing a gun, with a nearly naked woman draped over him. According to Mayor Street's office, some police officers who saw the ads cried foul. Understandable, since many of them had probably just come back from the funeral of Officer Chuck Cassidy, killed by gunshot.

A suspected hitman linked to 14 murders and the attempted murder of four New York police officers here was nabbed in Florida yesterday after eluding New York City authorities for 18 months. Police arrested Ghandi Guzman, 22, a Colombian linked to the murder of two women in a drug-related shooting in New York City in 1988 and the attempted murder of four police officers in 1987. Guzman was nabbed by police and members of the Drug Enforcement Task Force as he drove on a state road in Dade County, said Det. Lizette Williams, a police spokeswoman.

Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 masterpiece Le Samourai - quoted mightily in Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog earlier this year - is one of the coolest pieces of cinema ever to come out of France. A suave, savvy take on the American gangster film, this noir tale of a hitman's night of murder - and the lengths he goes to establish an alibi - is a study of solitude, ritual and, perhaps, madness. Alain Delon, France's answer to James Dean, stars as Jef, a trenchcoated, fedora-wearing assassin who lives in a stark apartment with his boxes of cigarettes, bottles of water and caged songbird.

An Overbrook woman was convicted by a U.S. District Court jury yesterday of trying to hire a hitman to kill her husband. The jury deliberated for about an hour and a half before finding Cecelia Wadley, 50, of the 6000 block of West Jefferson Street, guilty of using a telephone in the commission of a contract killing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Goldstein said that Wadley faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. scheduled sentencing for Sept.

"Hitman" looks like Hollywood's comic-book-ish replacement for the recently wrapped-up Bourne franchise. It stars Timothy Olyphant as the unstoppable programmed-to-kill assassin who finds out he's expendable, then goes on a rampage of revenge. The music is the same, and so is the European travelogue - "Hitman" bounces from Russia to Istanbul to London as its title character looks for answers while he's stalked by assassins from his own organization. The movie even gives its hero (he has no name)

A Bucks County lawyer, charged with hiring a hitman to kill the occupant of a house where he wanted to open a suburban sex club, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Joseph P. Guarrasi, 38, was released on bail Friday from Bucks County prison. Judge David W. Hecker approved the release on the condition that Guarrasi enter inpatient treatment at Friends Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia. Guarrasi's defense lawyer, Richard Fink, said that condition had been met. "He is hospitalized," Fink said yesterday.

Aaron "AJ" Jones, the college-educated, gun-toting street boss of the notorious Junior Black Mafia, didn't hesitate to order executions of drug rivals. After years in the fast lane of drug violence, Jones, 30, yesterday got to face the same terror as his victims: His own death. A jury ordered him to die for masterminding the plot to kill Bruce Kennedy, 30, a rival in his lovelife as well as in his $100-million drug business. The once flashy Jones, who had sported a diamond encrusted ring spelling "JBM," stood calmly in a brown suit, his white shirt opened at the collar and his hands behind his back.

St. Louis forward Mike Danton was arrested yesterday in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme, the FBI said. According to a criminal complaint, Danton, 23, told a female friend that a hitman from Canada was coming to kill him and asked the woman if she knew someone who would kill the person for $10,000. The woman, identified as Katie Wolfmeyer, passed his call to another man, described as a "cooperating witness. " The FBI witness and Danton spoke again Thursday, and Danton allegedly hatched a plot where the witness could kill the "hitman" at Danton's apartment and make it look like two burglars had broken in, one being killed and the other making off with $3,000 Danton had in a safe.

"Diary of a Hitman" has everything you would expect in a B movie. The story of a professional killer's plans to knock off a beautiful young wife and her baby, the film is packed with beautiful bodies and violence. But look who's starring - James Belushi and, from television's "Twin Peaks," Sherilyn Fenn. Low-budget moviemakers are packing their low-concept pictures with big-name stars, bigger special effects and better scripts. "The public will not accept the low-budget movies," said Roger Corman, king of B movie classics like "Little Shop of Horrors," "Not of This Earth" and "The Terror Within.

A moody, mysterious hitman. A woman fleeing her abusive husband. A police detective looking for love. Their paths converge in The Merry Gentleman , a sly and surprisingly sublime little noir romance, which marks the directing debut of Michael Keaton. Keaton stars as Frank Logan, the quiet man with the telescopic rifle who makes his living killing people. But Frank's experiencing a crisis: The murder business has turned him sad, suicidal. In fact, one snowy evening, he's ready to hurl himself from a building.

Ernie Sims knew it was coming. He just couldn't prepare for the impact. Now, he knows how Lavelle Hawkins feels. Sims blasted Hawkins, a Titans receiver, in the Eagles' last game, on Oct. 24. Hawkins was in the middle of the field, in the path of a pass that was caught further downfield. Sims anticipated Hawkins catching the pass, so Sims hammered Hawkins. Sims anticipated discipline from NFL cheap-hit czar Ray Anderson, but not $50,000. Three weeks, ago, the NFL made it clear that hits to defenseless players, as Hawkins clearly was, would result in harsh discipline - harsher still for the likes of Sims.

A moody, mysterious hitman. A woman fleeing her abusive husband. A police detective looking for love. Their paths converge in The Merry Gentleman , a sly and surprisingly sublime little noir romance, which marks the directing debut of Michael Keaton. Keaton stars as Frank Logan, the quiet man with the telescopic rifle who makes his living killing people. But Frank's experiencing a crisis: The murder business has turned him sad, suicidal. In fact, one snowy evening, he's ready to hurl himself from a building.

A South Philadelphia mortgage broker was ordered held without bail yesterday on murder-for-hire charges as prosecutors revealed that the man he allegedly attempted to hire was a cooperating federal witness who secretly recorded several conversations in which the murder plot was discussed. "Make it look like a robbery," Mahn Huu "Bruce" Doan said, according to a partial transcript in a pretrial motion filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine E. Sykes. "Do whatever you think is best in your mind where it don't bring back heat," Doan allegedly added during the conversation recorded May 1 at his business office in the Econo Lodge Airport Hotel in South Philadelphia.

FOR FLYERS FANS out there, we raise this question: What word comes to mind when considering the play of winger Scott Hartnell? Aggressive? Tough? Scrappy? What about dirty? No? Well, there are some players who disagree with you. According to a poll of 324 NHL players published in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated - which hits newsstands today - 5 percent of players thought Hartnell could use a lesson in sensitivity. Anaheim defenseman Chris Pronger and Dallas forward Steve Ott topped the dirtiest player list, with 13 percent each.

'If I'd grown up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't. " So grumbles Ray (Colin Farrell), the disgruntled half of a hitman duo in hiding in the Belgian burg that gives its name to Martin McDonagh's bloody, entertaining yarn, In Bruges . Ray has reason to feel bad - even as he and his partner in crime, Ken (burly Brendan Gleeson), explore the canals, cafes, and cobblestones of this picture-postcard medieval town. Back in London, a killing had gone terribly wrong.

ASIDE from the childish refrain "I don't trust, don't want, won't eat food from China," Stu Bykofsky's column "Why Are You Buying Anything from China?" smacked of the "yellow peril," the racial prejudice that's been evoked by U.S. politicians and media when politically or economically expedient. China is more than "tainted toothpaste," "diseased seafood" and the author's Cold War-era "Red China": Culturally diverse and historically rich, China is poised to be an economic superpower.

"Hitman" looks like Hollywood's comic-book-ish replacement for the recently wrapped-up Bourne franchise. It stars Timothy Olyphant as the unstoppable programmed-to-kill assassin who finds out he's expendable, then goes on a rampage of revenge. The music is the same, and so is the European travelogue - "Hitman" bounces from Russia to Istanbul to London as its title character looks for answers while he's stalked by assassins from his own organization. The movie even gives its hero (he has no name)

IN A CITY with a real-life gun problem, ads glorifying gun violence to sell movies can be particularly sickening. So we're glad to report that some in City Hall are taking it personally and saying, "Enough is enough. " Billboards and SEPTA bus ads for the movie "Hitman" went up a few weeks ago. They show a man pointing a gun, with a nearly naked woman draped over him. According to Mayor Street's office, some police officers who saw the ads cried foul. Understandable, since many of them had probably just come back from the funeral of Officer Chuck Cassidy, killed by gunshot.

A Philadelphia man who police believe may be connected to the 2004 arson killings of six people in the home of a federal witness has been charged with murder for hire in an unrelated case. According to an FBI affidavit, when an informant told Lamont Lewis, 31, during a meal at the Pub restaurant in Pennsauken on Wednesday that he needed someone killed, Lewis replied that he was the "iceman. " On Thursday, authorities picked up Lewis, of West Philadelphia, while he was driving his blue Jaguar in the city.

In a darkened Beaver Stadium corridor, Tony Hunt walked past Joe Paterno just as the coach was rolling up a khaki pantleg even farther than normal to display the fresh bruise that left him moaning and limping. Penn State was fortunate that the conditions of the men's legs weren't reversed. On a day when Paterno got steamrolled by a lineman during warm-ups, Hunt did the same thing to Purdue's defense, particularly at a critical juncture of the fourth quarter, in a 33-15 Penn State victory that delighted a chilled homecoming crowd of 109,467.