by Jeffery Rahming, Contributing Writer
Richard Linklater is perhaps one of the most eclectic filmmakers we have. From his beloved Before trilogy, to his decade-long masterpiece Boyhood, he’s always trying to push the boundaries of storytelling. His newest release, Hit Man, is a straightforward concept on the surface, but underneath is a fun genre-bending comedy with a dash of existential angst.
Hit Man is very loosely based on real-life fake hit man, Gary Johnson, who posed as a working-class for-hire-killer for the Houston Police. In the movie, Gary (played by rising star Glen Powell) is a psychology professor who does tech for the police on the side. After one of his coworkers gets kicked off the job, it’s up to Gary to become a fake hit man to catch people looking for someone to do their dirty work. Initially nervous, he finds a way to turn it into an art form. All of his marks require a different kind of hit man and a different kind of disguise. However, this becomes a shaky house of cards when he falls for Madison Masters (Adria Arjona), one of his marks. Now he has to pretend he’s a seasoned killer to keep her intrigued. Of course, everything gets more complicated from there.
Like most of Linklater’s projects, Hit Man has a simple plot that dances with some heavy themes. Through Gary’s adventure, we get a bit of meta commentary about the nature of the craft of acting, questions about the morality of police entrapment, and some pretty deep psychological analysis on what kind of person one has to be to take a life. Somehow, none of this distracts from the love story at the center of the film. The trope of the romantic comedy lead pretending to be someone else has been done to death, but how this story plays with the layers of identity is pretty fun. Powell and Arjona have something that’s been lacking between romantic leads in many recent movies: actual chemistry. This is, of course, helped by Linklater’s pen. Unsurprisingly, the man who wrote the Before trilogyknows how to write a good couple. The script, in general, is airtight. There’s not a minute of wasted space or an errant joke. Each scene is an added layer to the ever-complex growing drama.
Powell’s display of his craft is impressive. In this film alone, he plays a smoldering romantic lead, a typical Hollywood nerd, and a stoic action hero all in one performance. Not to mention the chuckle-worthy impressions that he gives in his various disguises. Gary is a hard character to read, and that’s what makes him so intriguing. Through his disguises, he opens up another dimension of himself. While he’s nominally a good guy, it is somewhat disconcerting how quickly he can switch from a nerdy loser to his lethal alter-ego. You’re never quite sure what his next move will be.
Hit Man is another low-key hit from Linklater and, in my opinion, the official christening of Glen Powell as a bonafide star. This movie is a lot of things, but predictable is not one of them. The twists and turns of Gary’s identity-shifting tale are something you have to discover for yourself.
Rating: Liked It
Hit Man is currently streaming on Netflix
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