“Hit Man” Review
Directed by Richard Linklater (Center), “Hit Man” stars Glen Powell (Right) as the titular fake criminal whose life becomes complicated when he meets and falls in love with someone who wants him to kill a man.
Glen Powell is easily one of the biggest movie stars to have emerged within the past few years with big roles in “Top Gun: Maverick”, “Devotion” and the upcoming “Twisters”. While he’s worked steadily for years, I first became aware of his talent in Richard Linklater’s 2016 film “Everybody Wants Some!!” which is a superb underrated gem as well as a strong spiritual sequel to the cult classic “Dazed and Confused”. Now, Powell and Linklater have reunited for “Hit Man”, an excellent dark comedy which expertly combines humor and romance for a fun time with our dark side.
In New Orleans, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a college professor of psychology and philosophy who applies his expertise in technology to the city’s police department for its use in sting operations. In these stakeouts, the police recruit Johnson to pose as a hitman named Ron in order to apprehend criminals that are trying to employ a contract killer. While mild-mannered and harmless, Gary discovers that he’s pretty good at playing this character and grows to love doing this service for the police. Matters are complicated when, as Ron, Gary meets Maddy (Adria Arjorna) who is wanting to put a hit out on her abusive husband. Against all better judgment, Gary falls in love with Maddy and the pair must find their way through a situation that grows more twisted and complicated.
Richard Linklater is one of those filmmakers that loves to go back-and-forth with his work. One minute he’s making a film that completely pushes the boundaries of cinema like “Slacker”, the “Before” trilogy and “Boyhood”. The next, he’s making these fun “hang out” movies that are more crowd-pleasing but just as valuable like “Dazed and Confused”, “School of Rock” and “Everybody Wants Some!!”. “Hit Man” falls into the latter category and more than earns its place alongside Linklater’s most entertaining work.
Despite a title like “Hit Man” and the main character’s work often having him be in contact with nefarious people, I found that the film worked best as a romance. The chemistry Glen Powell and Adria Arjorna have is intensely strong and, while it emerges from crazy places, this is a couple worth rooting for. Powell is one of those actors who, like Ethan Hawke and Matthew McConaughey, can take Linklater’s laid back wit and turn it into a fully realized character. Since he cowrote the script, it’s obvious that the pair truly compliment each other and it’s resulted in a strong partnership and story.
Powell’s performance is especially interesting since Gary often has to blur his true self in order to properly do this job. When he falls in love with Maddy, everything changes and Gary finds himself torn between what he would normally do and what he would do as Ron, since that’s the only identity Maddy knows him as. Since Gary is a psychology and philosophy professor, he contemplates how this job and his actions are affecting him on those academic levels. I like the ideas that “Hit Man” addresses of deliberately becoming a different person and how it changes you. Is the new person you inhabit truly a fake or is it just the next step of evolution that you set in motion? Like a lot of Linklater films, the philosophical elements are discussed but are still in the background. They're interesting ideas that you can look back on long after you’ve seen the film.
Arjona’s work in the film is also fantastic as you feel that she just wants to get out of a bad situation but her follow-through feels a bit rash. I mean, she does want to hire “Ron” to kill her husband. But there’s this sweet side to her that, combined with initiative and alluring magnetism, does make you see why Gary would be interested in her.
Like Linklater’s 2011 film “Bernie”, “Hit Man” has a fun sense of dark humor that had me in stitches. The script that Linklater and Powell wrote together feels like a combination of all the elements I’ve loved in his past films: the romance of the “Before” trilogy, the laid back characters of “Dazed and Confused”, the endearing comedy of “School of Rock” and the darkness of “Last Flag Flying”. However, the film does stand on its own with all of these elements of his previous work just being reasons why Linklater would be drawn to this kind of story.
Entertaining the whole way through, I was floored by the ending and found it to be very satisfying. Without spoiling anything, “Hit Man” kept me curious since, with all the lies being told, there were many ways that this story could have ended poorly or in a way that seemed unoriginal. You know serious stuff has to go down but Linklater and Powell subvert expectations without disappointing the audience or betraying the ideas of the film.
Richard Linklater has made many iconic films but he’s always had this more casual sense of disruption about him. He feels like many of his characters by having the “slacker” feel of his generation while also having a strong drive to make cool movies the way he wants to make them. He feels outside the studio system while also working with it to get his work seen. “Hit Man” is a film that shows why a filmmaker like Linklater is necessary. Whether he’s completely changing how time can be depicted in a film or making a fun romance with a fake hitman, he will always feel unique which means a new film from him is not to be missed.
