Hit men do not exist. Or rather, the “retail”-level contract killer available to middle-class normies that is essentially a construct of movies and television does not exist. This is how the central, seemingly ridiculous premise of Richard Linklater’s new, loosely based-in-truth film “Hit Man” can function.
Hit men do not exist. Or rather, the “retail”-level contract killer available to middle-class normies that is essentially a construct of movies and television does not exist. This is how the central, seemingly ridiculous premise of Richard Linklater’s new, loosely based-in-truth film “Hit Man” can function.
In the film, Glen Powell plays Gary Johnson, a psych and philosophy professor who moonlights as a technician for the New Orleans police department. He assists in handling the surveillance side of sting operations where undercover cops pretend to be professional murderers to capture those who would hire them. Early in the film, Jasper (Austin Amelio), the hothead officer who usually plays the hit man role, is suspended after being filmed assaulting some teenagers in the line of duty. On short notice, Gary is called upon to stand in for him.
Up to this point, Gary, through his voice-over narration and the sight of his bored students rolling their eyes during his lectures on ethics and the nature of the self, seems like the last person who should be doing a dangerous job like this. Aside from Powell’s chiseled good looks, Gary appears as milquetoast a protagonist as can be. In fact, the film’s general tone would also feel middling and unadventurous if one wasn’t already privy to Linklater’s unassuming gifts as a storyteller. But the second he walks into the sting, Gary and the film instantly come alive. He delivers a believably impressive and suitably fearsome performance as a man who makes his living ending lives.
His police handlers Claudette (Retta) and Phil (Sanjay Rao) are blown away, and he begins to do the role more often in Jasper’s absence. Using his understanding of psychology, he puts an absurd level of effort into tailoring each fictional hit man he portrays to whomever they are trying to catch, allowing Gary a creative outlet to be any number of people more interesting than he seems to be. Perhaps the most entertaining section of the film is the series of stings that most viewers would have been comfortable watching for another hour, if not as a dedicated television series. Whether it’s the ginger Tilda Swinton wig he wears or the pitch-perfect Patrick Bateman impression he employs, Gary, and Powell in portraying him, have an absolute blast.
But the film hinges on one sting, where Gary as “Ron” has a surprising meet-cute with Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman trying to have her abusive husband killed. Taken by her vulnerability, Gary botches the sting and suggests she run away and start a new life. The easy chemistry between the two transcends the horrible predicament for their actual meeting, and “Hit Man” ascends into something special here.
The film is loosely based on the real-life Gary Johnson who did this exact job, albeit less colorfully and less elaborately. Still, the secret to the movie’s special sauce is Linklater’s script that he co-wrote and developed with Powell. The key change they made from reality and the source material, a 2001 article from Texas Monthly magazine, is what happens after Gary lets an abused woman off the hook. In the film, they meet again and begin to date, with Madison knowingly courting a man she believes holds down a day job eradicating people and making their remains disappear.
Powell and Arjona are magical together as the most toxic and foreboding romantic pairing on screen since Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl,” only Linklater’s vision is so much more laidback and less stylized than David Fincher’s. It becomes a tug of war over what’s worse, pretending to be someone you’re not while pursuing love or falling for someone you think is a literal monster, and what it says about both. The structure mirrors a romantic comedy. First, there’s tension about whether or not Madison will find out Gary’s truth and that “Ron” is a construct. Then, worse still, the real tension becomes about whether that construct is his true self.
In an overt move, much of the film’s drama and comedy are interspersed with scenes from Gary’s collegiate lectures, where he and his students have obvious debates about identity and morality meant to blast the film’s themes as loudly as possible. But that blatant device masks the more complex work being done between Powell and Arjona. In a romantic comedy, when one suitor pretends to be something he’s not, he can come clean, and the object of his affection affirms that all they ever wanted was the real him.
“Hit Man” goes in a much different direction. It suggests that whether or not fundamentally changing who you are is a good or a bad thing, it is, in fact, a possible thing. To achieve what you’ve never accomplished as you are, you may need to become someone you are not. But if you pretend long enough? If you genuinely fake it until you make it, what’s the difference?
“Hit Man” goes in a much different direction. It suggests that whether or not fundamentally changing who you are is a good or a bad thing, it is, in fact, a possible thing. To achieve what you’ve never accomplished as you are, you may need to become someone you are not. But if you pretend long enough? If you genuinely fake it until you make it, what’s the difference?
“Hit Man” is currently streaming exclusively on Netflix.
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