“Hit Man” Another Generic (But Slightly Fun) Comedy

Richard Linklater and Glen Powell come together in a new romantic comedy.

Summary

The film follows Gary Johnson, a college teacher whose part-time job consists on assisting the police on sting operations, always behind the scenes. A turn of events at work forces him to replace a colleague in the field, posing as a hit man to catch people who are trying to commit a murder.

Gary finds himself in trouble when he begins to fall for Madison, a woman who wants to hire him to kill her husband.

Generic, But Surprisingly Above Average

The idea was not bad: a man with no social talent and a boring life adopts different personalities to catch possible criminals. After a careful investigation, our protagonist builds a hit man character tailor-made to each individual, to have a better effect and earn their trust. And he starts to like the way other people look at him when he acts as someone else; because then he stops being a loser, to become someone confident and attractive.

We can all agree that the asset of this movie is Glen Powell in the main role. This man is becoming the new romcom hero, apparently, and I’m not mad at that. I said that earlier this year when Anyone But You came out: he has the necessary charisma for this kind of production. If only someone would write him a good script!

In this case, Powell himself collaborated with director Richard Linklater to write the screenplay for the film. They found inspiration in the real story of one Gary Johnson, a college professor who worked for the Huston police during the 80s and 90s as a fake contracted killer.

The first thirty minutes of the movie serve to introduce us to Gary, and the reluctant beginning of his activities as a fake hit man. Powell performing as different people is pretty funny. After that, we have the first appearance of the romantic interest, Madison, played by Aria Arjona.

On the bright side, the main couple has chemistry, which makes their interactions less cringe that they could have been. In their first scene together, I even started to wonder if I had stumbled into something good by accident. But no, the story is quick to deflate.

Gary (as one of his hit man characters, Ron) discourages Madison from killing his abusive husband, and convinces her of divorcing him instead. Not long after that, they start a relationship, but Gary never reveals his real identity. And of course, there are some gratuitous sex scenes, because it is impossible to make a film without them these days.

Romantic or Creepy?

For more than an hour, I thought we were having fun and being dumb. Everything changes when Madison decides to unceremoniously eliminate her husband. I know it’s a comedy, and I’m not supposed to take it seriously, but this was just very anticlimactic, and solidified something I was thinking during the whole movie: Madison has a very dangerous vibe.

The husband does not look very stable (he tries to hire a hit man to kill his wife) but neither does she. All Madison says about her husband sounds very suspicious from the first appointment with Ron/Gary, and when she decides to kill the guy, she shows no remorse. She only freaks out because she realizes Gary works for the police and can turn her in. It is implied that she committed the murder specifically for the money.

And Gary is a good guy. We have been following his story from the beginning, we know that. I thought his character arch was going to be realizing that he doesn’t need to assume a different identity to be liked, and that he should be more self-confident. But in a wild plot twist, Gary becomes a murderer himself, to cover for her beloved Madison. The murder doesn’t happen in a funny context, either, so it left me very confused as to why would they make that decision.

Don’t get me wrong, I always enjoy some good dark humor, but this is not it.

So our lovely couple get away with two murders, get married, have a kid, and live happily ever after. That is the end.

Until Madison gets bored of Gary and kills him as well, I guess. Because I’m convinced she is a psychopath.

Critical Reception and Theatre Run

Hit Man premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2023, and later that month it was screened at TIFF, where Netflix acquired the distribution rights.

The film had a limited theater distribution during a May and June of this year, before becoming available on Netflix on June 7.

Critical response was excellent, way better than it deserved, in my opinion. Compared to the garbage Netflix and other streaming services release on a regular basis, Hit Man is quite alright. Still not good, but decent. You can have a few laughs.

The audiences have a newfound interest in romcoms, as proved by the success of some recent projects of this genre. I think people just misses the old-school romcoms of the 90s and 2000s, that were, if not always great, at least funny.

Let’s hope it’s possible for those days to come back at some point.