"Hit Man" -- Movie Review

 

This week at the 61^st New York Film Festival, I attended the U.S. Premiere of the new action comedy “Hit Man”, directed by Richard Linklater. 

Synopsis

When a college professor is recruited to go undercover as a hit man for the police, can he pull it off without risking his own life?

Story

Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is living a perfectly satisfying life as a professor of Philosophy at the University of New Orleans – although as a divorced man, he lives alone with just his pet cat to keep him company.  An electronics enthusiast, he uses his skills part-time to work with the local police force in order to assist them in various crime fighting efforts.  One day, however, the force recruits him to a riskier duty – to go undercover as a hit man and record the transactions with the people who would hire him so they can be arrested.  This becomes necessary when Jasper (Austin Amelio), the actual undercover officer, is suspended for using unnecessary violence on the job. 

From the start, Gary is a success.  He gets incriminating evidence on people looking to hire him, resulting in their arrest (but not always culminating in a conviction, for a variety of reasons beyond his control).  By the time that Jasper’s suspension is over, he has now effectively lost his job; although he is still permitted to work on these assignments, he’s no longer the undercover cop he once was – and he blames Gary for this demotion.  However, Gary’s progress hits a roadblock when he meets Maddy (Adria Arjona), a recently-divorced woman who wants to arrange a hit on her ex-husband. 

Instead of getting Maddy to implicate herself, Gary merely advises her to change her mind and refocus her energies on fixing her new life.  Later, Maddy reaches out to Gary and it becomes clear that she no longer wishes to hire him for his services, but rather, to have a personal relationship with him.  Gary succumbs to her charms and they begin dating.  However, things go awry when Jasper becomes aware of their relationship and attempts to extort Maddy – and if she doesn’t pay up, he threatens to report them both to the police so she can be arrested and he can get back his old job.  Can Gary figure out a way to keep his and Maddy’s secret romance from getting them both in trouble?

Review

“Hit Man” is one of the most fun experiences you will have when watching a movie; it was recently reported that it will be available on the Netflix platform, but a release date has not yet been announced.  Regardless, whenever it becomes available, it is highly recommended that you add it to your watch list and stream it as soon as you can.  There are more than enough laughs in the film (at this screening, Linklater pretty much had the audience in the palm of his hand) and is also very sexy (thanks in no small part to the performance by Adria Arjona).  Is it art?  Who knows and who cares?  It’s a sensational piece of escapist amusement and in the end, that’s really all that matters.

One of Linklater’s greatest gifts as a director is his ability to keep a light touch on even the darkest of subjects, regardless of their being based on true events (which is not only true of “Hit Man”, but also an earlier work, “Bernie”).  While this has so far gotten some very positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (not to mention reactions at various film festivals around the world in the past few months), it may ultimately be word-of-mouth that takes it over the top, especially if the SAG-AFTRA strike continues and the actors are unable to promote the motion picture – which would be a shame, especially since everyone connected with this particular project should be quite proud. 

During an interview with director Richard Linklater following the screening, he said that he originally worked on the screenplay with Skip Hollandsworth, with whom he previously worked on the film “Bernie”.  The story was initially written for a Texas publication back in 2001 and the script was first optioned by Brad Pitt as a starring vehicle for himself.  Eventually, the script came up for renewal and it was re-optioned.  Linklater described the final version as a cross between film noir and a screwball comedy.  Actor Glen Powell worked with Linklater on previous projects and also made some contributions to the screenplay as well.