Loaded with charm…
★★★★☆ OUT 24 MAY CINEMAS 7 JUNE NETFLIX
Like David Fincher’s The Killer, Hit Man centres on an introspective assassin who likes to narrate his work ethic. Unlike Fincher’s film, Richard Linklater’s romcom-with-guns plays like an update of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (the Brangelina version). Funny, sexy and smart, it only amps further the star wattage of our current cover star Glen Powell, who also co-wrote.
Powell plays Gary Johnson, a nebbish New Orleans psychology lecturer who tops up his income with undercover tech work for the NOPD. Divorced Gary, with his ‘perfectly forgettable face’, unremarkable clothes (two words: comfort shoes), birdwatching hobby and car so ordinary his students make fun of it, creates the wiretaps for undercover stings, ensnaring those looking to hire a hitman.
Gary tutors his class in the concept of self – a neat throughline that plays out alongside his metamorphosis from sap to stud via some deft role play. During one sting, the cop who usually plays the fake hit man (their existence is ‘myth’, our narrator tells us) is benched, leaving the tech guy as the only option to head in with a wire. Forced to step into a persona, Gary mines a dormant baller side of himself – the troubadour, the badass – and he’s soon acing the hitman routine in a series of ridiculous guises; Powell, using that charisma familiar from Top Gun: Maverick, doesn’t disappoint.
Tailoring his performance to each client via social-media snooping, Gary’s channelling the most charming of his creations, Ron, when he meets Madison (Andor’s Adria Arjona), a young woman trapped in an abusive marriage. There’s an instant connection (one that recalls the heat of Lopez and Clooney in 90s rom-thriller Out of Sight). ‘What if your self is a construct?’ he asks the audience. And what happens when Gary wants to remain Ron?
Based on a feature in Texas Monthly magazine article by Skip Hollandsworth about a real-life Houston police officer who made a career as the state’s most prolific faux contract killer, Linklater’s breezy film is unapologetically commercial and fun. It taps into the concepts of identity and psychological self-s
