“Hit Man”
R/Action/Comedy/Romance
Director: Richard Linklater
Written by: Richard Linklater & Glen Powell
Starring: Glen Powell (“Top Gun: Maverick”), Adria Arjona (“Andor”), Austin Amelio (“The Walking Dead”), Retta (“Parks and Recreation”), Sanjay Rao (“Bad Romance”), Evan Holtzman (“Bolt from the Blue”)
Synopsis: Gary Johnson is a college professor who lives a mundane, quiet, lonely life. In his spare time, he’s a technology consultant helping the New Orleans Police Department during undercover sting operations. In a turn of events, he finds himself involved in these operations as a fake hit man in order to gather evidence on criminals trying to place a “hit” on someone. Each operation gives Gary the opportunity to change his looks/personality shaping him to be the ideal hit man for his “customers.” Everything changes when a beautiful woman walks into a diner and asks him to “take out” her abusive husband. This poses a challenge for Gary, why?…he falls in love.
Review: The film opens with a title card that says something along the lines of the film being “somewhat based on a true story.” There are many movies based on a true story that say that everything happened as shown with a few embellishments for dramatic purposes and the real life people involved look nothing like the Hollywood celebrities portraying them. Based on 2001 Texas Monthly article “Hit Man,” by Skip Hollandsworth surrounding fake hit man for hire, Gary Johnson, director/writer Richard Linklater and co-writer/star Glen Powell. The two take a sliver of truth and run with it. They take this interesting slice of real life as their hook and cling it onto a story that goes into fictional territory filled with romance and death with highly entertaining and hilarious results.
The best thing about this film is the Austin native, up and coming leading man, Glen Powell. After gaining worldwide attention by being a part of the supporting cast of “Top Gun: Maverick” as Rooster, being the co-lead of Netflix’s romantic comedy “Set It Up” and period war film, “Devotion.” It wasn’t until recently when Powell solidified himself as an A-List leading man in the box office smash, “Anyone But You.” Making him one of the leading stars at the box office.
Ironically, “Hit Man” was the film he made before “Anyone But You” and premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in September of last year, 3 months prior to audiences seeing him in “Anyone”. THIS should have been he film that marked him as the next big movie star. Powell oozes with charisma and commands the screen with his captivating screen presence. Gary Johnson is a character that you can tell Powell had an embarrassment of riches to choose from on how to make this character layered as well as the creative freedom to go wild with the different personas Johnson encapsulates throughout the film. Gary and Glen are chameleons when it comes to changing between the multiple identities. Each character is different in their own unique and distinct way, from being intimidating to over the top, each one showing the range Powell can achieve.
While this film deals with dark subjects, it evoked some of the tones echoed in Linklater’s decade-spanning romance films, the “Before” Trilogy. There is a meet-cute between a guy and a girl, they immediately hit it off with radiating chemistry, they have insightful conversations about random things while strolling through a city and the audience knows they are perfect for each other. In this film, it has all of that with the added guns, deception and murder with a few felonies sprinkled over in between. Before the film goes into that aspect of Gary (now named Ron on this particular undercover assignment) and Maddy’s (portrayed by Adria Arjon) relationship, what precedes is a very sweet and romantic love story between the two that while is extremely complicated for a multitude of reasons, you can’t help but hope they make it out of the film happy (out of jail) and together. I think what Linklater does expertly is casting actors that have great chemistry with one another. It’s evident in almost all his films, “Dazed and Confused,” “School of Rock,” and “Everybody Wants Some!!.” This is no exception, aside from the romantic chemistry between the two leads, a lot of the films laugh-out-loud moments come from Gary’s co-workers, Phil and Claudette (played by Sanjay Rao & Retta), who thrust Gary into the world of hitmen as two police officers who surveillance these undercover sting operations alongside him. The dynamic between the three of them is electric as they bounce off one another feeling like co-workers who get along yet strictly professional. As well as a terrific performance from Austin Amelio as Jasper who plays an a-hole so perfectly. He has the ability to be funny while also being intimidating. Amelio’s character is involved in a way that can ruin Ron and Maddy’s perfect little world. All of this is due not only to the performances but to the work of Linklater and Powell, who wrote co-script.
Richard Linklater and Glen Powell’s collaborative relationship started all the way back in 2006 when Powell at the age of 18, played the small role of Steve in Linklater’s film, “Fast Food Nation.” Ten years later, they reunited for 2016’s “Everybody Wants Some!!” Powell had more roles under his belt and was cast in a bigger and memorable supporting role as Finnegan and then Bostick in 2018’s “Apollo 10 ½.” It’s a full circle moment for the two as now they collaborate not just as actor/director but as co-writers. What they produced is a tight, darkly hilarious, and romantic script that is one of the best in Linklater’s illustrious career. The naturalistic dialogue is there, plot-important dialogue, insightful lectures about human psychology and identity during the university scenes and conversations about random things like moon tides mesh together to where it constantly holds your attention.
It includes one of my favorite moments in the film, as well as, one of the more suspenseful scenes. This involved a shouting match between two lovers, a wire-tapped Gary, and the notes app on his iPhone. It’s not always as lighthearted. A major theme in the film and Gary himself, “Hit Man” shifts identities and becomes a slightly different film in its final thirty minutes that shows that actions have consequences and what these lovers are willing to do to get their happily ever after.
This is one of the best films of the year. As an enormous fan of Richard Linklater, this is one of my favorites of his. It has immense replay value and is best seen with an audience. I hope it gets well deserved attention when it drops on Netflix on June 7th, but it’s well worth the trek out to a movie theater to catch this on the big screen starting (in select theaters) on May 24th.
Score: 9.5/10
