In a sentenceA shy man discovers the best version of himself is a killer for hire, and the film thinks that is sweet
New Orleans. Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) teaches psychology and lives with two cats called Id and Ego. On the side he does technical work for the police, sitting in a van with headphones while Jasper (Austin Amelio), an undercover officer, poses as a contract killer for people who want a spouse or a business partner dead. When Jasper is suspended, Gary is sent in to do the talking, and finds he is good at it: he gives each client the killer they have imagined, in a different wig, accent and set of teeth. Then Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona) sits down opposite him wanting her husband Ray (Evan Holtzman) gone, and Gary, posing as a smooth operator called Ron, breaks the rules and talks her out of it.
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Glen Powell gives himself a dozen men to play and is good as all of them, and Adria Arjona matches him. Linklater’s comedy is warm, funny and well made; it turns dark late on and keeps smiling, which we found harder to like.
Richard Linklater has made a comedy about a mild man who discovers he is good at pretending to be a dangerous one, and it is the most enjoyable thing he has done in years. Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) teaches psychology in New Orleans. He also wires the van for the police while Jasper (Austin Amelio), an undercover officer, sits in diners posing as a contract killer for people who want someone dead. When Jasper is suspended, Gary is sent in to do the talking. The film is funny, well acted and handsomely put together, and in its second half it becomes something darker and is not sure how dark it wants to be. That reservation is not small.
Powell co-wrote the script with Linklater and has written himself the part actors dream about: half a dozen men in an hour. Each client gets the hitman they have pictured. A rich boy in a suit gets a smooth professional; a man in a truck gets a swamp creature with ruined teeth; one poor soul gets a pale figure in black who has never seen daylight. Powell plays each one straight, and the joke is that Gary, who cannot hold a room as himself, holds every one of these. We laughed a good deal, and the arrests that follow each sting, the clients led away looking baffled, are the film at its sharpest about the people who go looking for a killer.
Then Madison walks in. Adria Arjona plays her as a woman who has rehearsed this meeting and is frightened of it anyway, and Gary, in the version of himself he calls Ron, no glasses, dark shirt, a lower voice, does the one thing he must not and tells her to keep the money and leave her husband instead. We sat forward. It is a long scene in a booth, mostly in two-shot, and Sandra Adair cuts away from it no more than she has to. The pleasure of the film is watching these two decide that they like each other more than the situation allows.
Shane F. Kelly shoots New Orleans in flat, humid daylight rather than the wet neon the genre usually reaches for; nothing about the place looks like a crime picture, which is the point. Bruce Curtis’s production design gives Gary a house full of paperbacks and Madison a rented bungalow that looks like a fresh start. Juliana Hoffpauir puts Gary in polo shirts and shorts and Ron in black; the clothes do the character work. Graham Reynolds’s score is light and jazzy and stays out of the way. In the van, Retta and Sanjay Rao, as Claudette and Phil, are a chorus who cannot believe what their tech man is doing, and they get some of the best lines.
The second half takes a turn we will not describe. The consequences arrive, and Linklater keeps the tone as breezy as it was when the worst thing was a bad wig. The first hour enjoyed watching cowards get caught. The second asks us to enjoy something else, and does not slow down long enough for us to feel the difference. Gary’s lectures to his students, about the self as a thing you build rather than a thing you are, tell us what the film means in case we missed it. We had not missed it. At 116 minutes the middle stretch lets the plot machinery take over from the people, and the film loses some of its lightness without gaining any weight.
Against Linklater’s own work, the nearest relation is Bernie, another comedy about a likeable man with a talent for being what people wanted. That film kept a chill under its jokes. This one mostly does not, which is why Bernie stays with you and Hit Man is a lovely evening. Most critics have put it a little higher than we have; they are right about the leads and, we think, a bit forgiving about the ending.
Watch it with someone you fancy. Enjoy the wigs and the booth, and try not to think too hard on the way to bed about what it has asked you to smile at.
Most critics like Hit Man, and they agree on where the credit lies. Glen Powell’s performance, and in particular his run of comic disguises as Gary tries on one hitman persona after another, is singled out in almost every review. Close behind is his chemistry with Adria Arjona; more than one review names a long argument scene between them as the film’s high point. Linklater’s direction is called relaxed and generous, and the script gets credit for keeping a dark moral edge under the farce.
The reservations are mild and cluster around tone and length. Several reviews find the move from comedy into something darker uneven, and the character shifts underwritten. The spread is narrow: nobody is hostile, and even the mixed notices call the film charming. Variety thinks the plot sprawls and the identity theme grows self-conscious; /Film finds it slight and forgettable; The AV Club says the polish makes it feel less personal than Linklater’s best work.
Titmarsh calls the film hugely entertaining and a gem. She praises how its screenplay deftly combines dark thrills with classic farce.
Read the full review →Strong finds the film a riotously entertaining, fresh black comedy with a darker moral undercurrent. She especially praises Glen Powell’s shape-shifting lead performance and the sharp script.
Read the full review →Felperin calls the film smart, steamy screwball fun and predicts viewers will leave delighted. She particularly praises the chemistry and comic timing of Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.
Read the full review →Ebiri finds the film genuinely fresh and suggests it could be a masterpiece. He praises Linklater’s gentle, generous direction and Glen Powell’s charming, self-aware star turn.
Read the full review →Newland finds Hit Man an entertaining, light-footed crime romp that balances comedy with darker moral questions. She especially praises the fizzy chemistry between Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.
Read the full review →Brody finds the film a clever, resonant romantic comedy, though its rushed character development and clichéd ending weaken it. He especially praises Glen Powell and Adria Arjona’s lively performances and charged chemistry.
Read the full review →
Bernie · not on Fi1m yetLinklater’s earlier true-crime comedy about a charmer; the same warmth, with a colder heart.
Body HeatThe wife, the husband and the sweat; noir with the temperature turned right up.
Kind Hearts and CoronetsMurder as a career path, and one actor playing an entire family.
Grosse Pointe BlankA contract killer goes home for his reunion; deadpan romance with a body count.
Out of SightTwo people in the wrong jobs fall for each other in one long conversation.
