Hit Man ★★★½

If one has seen Richard Linklater‘s Bernie before watching Hit Man, one may immediately identify the off-beat tonal similarity. It is no mistake, as both are based on true stories about outlandish happenings in the South. Both are also rooted in stories about murder by Skip Hollandsworth, who co-wrote the screenplay for Bernie and penned the original Texas Monthly magazine articles that served as the basis of Bernie and Hit Man. This is a decidedly different tale, however, than Bernie. This film concerns an ordinary man named Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), a psychology professor at the University of New Orleans and who could be generously defined as milquetoast. He lives alone with his two cats – named “Id” and “Ego” – and dresses as though style were an unfamiliar foreign language. He drives a Honda Civic, a car nobody will accuse of being cool. As a side gig, he works with the New Orleans Police Department and helps with undercover sting operations, usually concerning the hiring of hitmen. When the department’s undercover mole is suspended, Gary is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight. What is, at first, a one-time request to stand in as the hit man becomes his new job with the department, as Gary has a skill in getting people to incriminate themselves.

Linklater not only revists some past tonal styles in his filmography with Hit Man, but also leans on some influences. In his career, he has frequently discussed his love for the work of director Robert Altman and with this film, there are the thematic echoes of Altman’s Images and 3 Women, which were heavily focused on the exploration of identity. Gary Johnson speaks of it frequently, whether in lectures or in daily life, while his job quickly becomes one of identity. He describes the need to become the hitman that the would-be criminals imagine they will meet. This affords Powell plenty of chances to flex his acting range and Linklater to provide some comedic punch, but it also offers an opportunity for Gary to try on different personalities. This otherwise nondescript man gets to play a wide variety of hitman characters, most notably “Ron”. It is as Ron that he meets Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona), a woman who wants to hire him to kill her abusive and controlling husband. Rather than fulfilling his end of either the hitman or undercover agent bargain, Gary/Ron ends up talking her out of the crime and actually ends up befriending and dating Madison. Narration from Gary centers on how he and Ron differ, stretching from how Ron carries a conversion to how Ron conducts himself sexually. They are polar opposites with the meek, thoughtful, and conservative Gary able to moonlight as the suave and confident Ron, leaning on the mysterious hitman aura to conjure up a bad boy machismo that enraptured not only Madison but Gary himself.

Hit Man’s use of Gary lectures and psychological discussions center the film’s main questions on how one defines themselves, if one truly knows themselves, and if a person can change their entire personality to become something else of their choosing. Thinking of the Altman influence, Images showcased a woman losing sight of reality as she sees a doppelganger of herself with her perception of the “real” her being lost. In Hit Man, Gary not only gets to literally call himself Ron when around Madison, but his persona outside of his romantic tryst begins to change. Not only do his female students think of him as being suddenly attractive, but he ditches his glasses, starts to comb his hair differently, and conducts himself with a quiet confidence, assertiveness, and extraversion that counters his previously muted and questioning nature. Ron begins to take over as the dominant personality with Gary subconsciously and, later, consciously moving himself towards being more like Ron. Hit Man sets up Gary’s undercover job as him fulfilling his clients’ fantasy of what a hitman is like and while this is true, it is also fulfilling his own fantasy of what a hitman is like, his desires to escape from his prior “self”, and to escape from the prism of being that original Gary who would not be doing or saying anything like these hitmen.

Outside of its exploration of identity, Hit Man is cool, hysterical, sexy, and romantic. Linklater, throughout his career, has demonstrated an ability to capture a sense of reality. Though the plot is unusual and the events are not ones most people will experience, at its core and especially in its romance between Gary/Ron and Madison, it has a natural feeling. Powell and Arjona’s chemistry is a big part of that with the two able to feed off of one another’s energy so palpably and believably that the audience is swept away with the pairing while they are swept away with one another. Gary’s friendships at work with Claudette (Retta) and Phil (Sanjay Rao), similarly, benefit from the cast’s great chemistry with one another and their ability to capture an authentic flow in their conversations that often lead to incredibly funny encounters. Hit Man is a film that feels like it is filled with real friends and real lovers who all have inside jokes and a common language that the audience are being let in on. When Linklater goes more towards the off-beat jokey style, notably in montages of Gary’s undercover work yielding arrests, the film hits yet again with each encounter offering plenty of laughs. The supporting cast of oddball characters who want to hire a hitman are great, while Powell shines in each hitman role. He has true movie star presence in every frame of Hit Man, exuding the charisma, flair, and range that have seen his career flourish.

The film, from the very first scene, has an innate ability to grab the audience’s attention. Simply hearing Gary lecture is enough to make one engage, but as the film kicks more into its undercover fake hitman plot, Linklater strikes a great balance. It is funny watching this one-time unassuming man disappear into the role of a hardened hitman, but there’s an inherent tension to watching him work, trying to get the person to incriminate themselves, and elude detection. As the film’s romance and other murder plots take hold, Linklater maintains this great balance as Gary’s growing life of lies and playing both sides creates tension and dramatic irony for the viewer. As the film starts embracing darker ideas, Hit Man becomes absolutely irresistible with one hooked on every moment, watching a filmmaker firmly in their element and knowing every button to hit.

From the very first frame, Hit Man is a confident and assured film with strong writing and direction from Linklater. As Glen Powell’s Gary Johnson lectures about psychology, the film is putting into motion every detail about itself from its exploration of this outlandish “somewhat true” story of a professor-turned-undercover cop to its psychological discussions about identity, the self, and a person’s ability to change. It is a funny, off-beat, and often outright goofy film, but also one with genuine sensuality, edge-of-your-seat thrill, and a cool demeanor that makes it a great mixture of compelling themes and pure entertainment.