hitchcock

I had an Idea for something like that. A kid goes into a wax museum and falls asleep in one of the exhibits. He wakes up and heads home. Somehow, he realizes that the knife that a wax murderer or something is in his chest. If you use creative directing, it might work.

If you are going to do a hitman type thing, I would suggest a few different directions.

If it's a short movie, I would suggest doing the entire thing from the hitmans (Camera's) POV. a lot of rehearsal and one long take, hitman picks up a guy, or perhaps start it from opening a trunk where the victim is gagged and bound. From there, develop the story through the victims pleadings.

From there (With or without the camera POV angle...) you can develop the story from a single train of dialogue, the victims, who the victim is and what he has done, all can unfold as he pleads for his life.

Another idea (I've never heard of it, and only thought of it after reading this post and replies, use it if ya want)
The guy/victim, gets a phone call with an excited voice he doesn't recognize telling him he's in danger, theres a hitman coming in to kill him at five oclock on... the phone goes dead. At first he assumes, this has to be a wrong number, but the man on the phone called him by a familiar name, not his last or really his first but a common nickname that he has (But a common one so we can still wonder if it was a wrong number or not.)
After a while, he becomes convinced that it's a practical joke, so he begins asking around and begins getting suspicious david Mamet type responses, adding to his confusion and suspicion.
The hard and troubling part is, the call was broken before the date could be told, all he knows is the time, not even if it's in the AM or PM.
So each day at that time and each night, he goes super paranoid. from there build until his life, his friends, his girlfriend/wife, family, all falls apart.
All from a single short phone call that may or may not be even for him.

My personal ending would have him kicked out of home, lost his job and life in shambles walking by a window display as a news flash of one "Sammy "The (Nickname of our character) Torriccelli" was gunned down in a mob hit, etc.

Hope it gives you some ideas...

A mob boss, shrouded in shadow picks up his ringing phone to get one of his henchmen. The henchman wants to kill a guy, but knows he must ask the boss first. He tells the boss that the guy he wants to kill is a very powerful member of the underworld who is a threat to nearly everyone, the Boss asks if this guy is a threat to him and the lackey replies, 'No, but he is to the people who work for you...'. He also says that nobody knows his real name and nobody has ever really seen what he looks like. The boss finally decides that, yes, this guy can be killed and the camera moves down to reveal a bomb planted under the desk, in the phone booth the lackey thanks the boss and taps a remote, blowing the building across the road, the building with the Boss in it, sky high.

Also, would you mind if I used the fish idea?