Hit Man – first-look review

Every few years or so, an arti­cle pops up lament­ing that there are no real movie stars any­more. I go back and forth on whether or not I agree – cer­tain­ly an uptick in social media usage has removed much of the mys­tique that once sur­round­ed the rich and famous.

Also, a glut of for­mu­la­ic fran­chis­es and sequels – not to men­tion the notion films are treat­ed as equa­tions rather than art by many stu­dios – means it’s more rare to see the light­ning in a bot­tle that is the per­fect mar­riage of good mate­r­i­al and good per­for­mance cap­tured on screen. But every so often a per­son comes along who gives me hope that the je né sais quoi of the movie star isn’t dead. The lat­est to do so is Glen Pow­ell, who stole the show last year in Top Gun: Mav­er­ick and now teams up with his good bud­dy Richard Lin­klater for a delight­ful­ly dark com­e­dy, inspired (most­ly) by a true story.

Texas natives Pow­ell and Lin­klater have known each oth­er for years; the for­mer was 17 when he had a small part in Fast Food Nation and sup­port­ing roles in 2017’s Every­body Wants Some! and 2022’s Apol­lo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Child­hood. This marks their largest-scale col­lab­o­ra­tion to date, with Pow­ell serv­ing as lead, co-writer and pro­duc­er on Hit Man.

Based on a 2001 Texas Month­ly arti­cle (writ­ten by Skip Hol­landsworth, who also co-wrote Bernie with Lin­klater) about a man named Gary John­son, the film’s premise is both pleas­ant­ly famil­iar and amus­ing: an agree­able col­lege psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor/­part-time police wire­tap­per is forced to step up and pose as a hit man to help out his team, only to dis­cov­er a hid­den tal­ent for the work that inevitably leads him into an entire­ly more dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. It’s a clas­sic fish-out-of-water con­cept, which means exe­cu­tion is every­thing. Luck­i­ly Lin­klater and Pow­ell prove a win­ning combination.

Gary is a dorky bespec­ta­cled divorcee who lives with his two cats – Id and Ego – and enjoys bird­ing in his spare time. The stu­dents he teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Orleans think he’s a square, as do his col­leagues at his part-time police sur­veil­lance gig, Claudette (Ret­ta), Jasper (Austin Ame­lio) and Phil (San­jay Rao). But Gary’s con­vinced he doesn’t mind; he’s hap­py being alone. Any­way, he has to deal with a minor work cri­sis when under­cov­er sting oper­a­tive, Jasper, is sus­pend­ed, Gary has to step in and pose as a hit­man for a meet­ing with a sus­pect. Much to Gary’s sur­prise, he has a knack for the work, and his inter­est in psy­chol­o­gy means he delights in cre­at­ing just the right per­sona to make a mark crack.

It’s in his unusu­al side hus­tle that Gary meets Madi­son (Adria Arjona), a fright­ened house­wife who is look­ing for some­one to ​‘take care of’ her abu­sive hus­band. He’s pos­ing as Ron, a suave but sen­si­tive assas­sin who is every­thing Gary isn’t – dis­armed by Madison’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, he fal­ters and lets her go with some advice instead of covert­ly prompt­ing her to incrim­i­nate her­self on record. From then on their paths are inter­twined, with the lines between Gary and his alter-ego Ron inevitably begin­ning to blur.

Pow­ell is delight­ful here. He shifts per­sonas with ease as Gary per­fects the art of becom­ing exact­ly the per­son that his ​‘clients’ need him to be, and it’s very easy for the audi­ence to get tak­en in by his affa­ble nature, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en he nar­rates the film with a chip­per voice-over. He shifts from dorky psych prof to slick con­tract killer with an ease that sug­gests Pow­ell is capa­ble of much more than Hol­ly­wood is cur­rent­ly giv­ing him. It’s no easy role either – Gary is an ​“aver­age” man, act­ing as many oth­er men, and Pow­ell has to cap­ture Gary’s per­for­mance with­in his own per­for­mance (how meta). He’s a nat­ur­al though, nail­ing the phys­i­cal com­e­dy with ease. All the more excit­ing for his next project – a roman­tic com­e­dy with the equal­ly charis­mat­ic Syd­ney Sweeney.

But Lin­klater uses the famil­iar­i­ty of a good old-fash­ioned caper to hide some­thing more sin­is­ter: Gary’s shift­ing sense of moral­i­ty when romance comes into the pic­ture. What starts as a fun chal­lenge for the psy­chol­o­gy buff – becom­ing dif­fer­ent peo­ple as part of his job – quick­ly becomes real­i­ty. How easy is it for a per­son to com­plete­ly change who they are, Lin­klater and Pow­ell ask. Do you sim­ply have to start act­ing like a new man – and does this make you capa­ble of things that pre­vi­ous­ly seemed unthinkable?

While we talk of movie stars dying out, it also feels as though the com­e­dy genre has suf­fered a decline too. It’s a plea­sure then to find a film as effort­less­ly fun­ny as Hit Man. The smart script and excel­lent cast­ing (shout out to the sup­port­ing cast, as essen­tial as Pow­ell in pulling this off) make the film a relent­less joy, as well as the impres­sive hair and make-up work that sees Gary trans­form into his var­i­ous con­tract killer char­ac­ters. It’s easy to get swept up in the humour of it all and over­look the rather dark third act, but this bal­ance is inte­gral to the film’s suc­cess. What Gary wants us to believe is a love sto­ry actu­al­ly looks clos­er to a tale of blos­som­ing sociopathy.

I’ll con­fess to being a bit of a Lin­klater scep­tic (a Linkhater, if you will) who doesn’t like Boy­hood and thinks the Before tril­o­gy is over­rat­ed. I will cop to vib­ing more with his come­dies, so per­haps it’s a case of Lin­klater and Pow­ell appeal­ing to my sym­pa­thies here. But Hit Man tru­ly is a breath of fresh air; that rare film that man­ages to nail the per­fect com­bi­na­tion of a charis­mat­ic lead, sharp script, and a murky under­cur­rent of dark­ness. It’s a gen­uine­ly riotous time at the cin­e­ma and con­crete proof Pow­ell is per­haps our bright­est hope when it comes to keep­ing the notion of the movie star alive.