Urban Imaginaries in Canadian Crime Film: Entanglements of Crime and Place in Running with the Hitman

Abstract

This paper examines Canadian crime film and urban imaginaries, taking as its focus the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and its depiction in the film Running with the Hitman, released in 2004. Considering elements of genre, narrative structure, and visuality, the paper demonstrates how place serves to mark and map out boundaries between the criminal and non-criminal, and to locate crime in relation to specific urban geographies. The main argument in this paper is that representations of crime, criminality, and place in this film work together to co-produce a particular vision of the city and shape a notion of urbanity. In the case of Running with the Hitman, the film represents Winnipeg as an industrial, working-class city in transition. The urban imaginary that surfaces in this film is ambivalent; it is rooted in nostalgia for the ‘old’ neighbourhood and ambivalence about modern, (sub)urban life. It is also a contradictory version of urbanity in the context of contemporary Canadian film, encompassing conventional urban images as well as new vistas.