Movie Review: Hit Man
One-liner: Star-making performances and smart writing fuel this entertaining, suspenseful and fun crime comedy caper.
Hit Man is a Richard Linklater film, a caper that centres on a professor who moonlights as a police techie on stings to arrest people looking to hire a contract killer. When their inside man is caught up in a controversial video, his cover and job is on the line, making it necessary to blood his replacement at short notice. This is when Gary discovers his hidden talent for acting, delving into the psyche of his targets in order to play variations of Don – the hitman he believes they need. When an attractive woman tries to enlist Don’s services to kill her husband, Gary expertly blows the assignment and finds himself in a dangerous gray area between the law and love.
Best known for Boyhood, which lost out on an Oscar to Birdman, Richard Linklater has established himself as a visionary filmmaker. While tending towards films with a docudrama undertone, most notably the Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight series, he’s been known to dabble in animation with enterprising feature films such as Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood. Not subscribing to any one genre, it’s not unusual for him to lean towards comedy with successful Jack Black ventures including: School of Rock, Bernie and Everybody Wants Some!!.
This docudrama and comedy edge is prevalent in Hit Man as Linklater airdrops us into the film scenario as Gary is promoted to New Orleans Police Department hitman. Creating a character for himself, lines blur as Gary’s double life as Don begins to take over. Finding the job feeds back into his work as a professor, giving him expert insights and confidence, he begins to take a page from Don’s streetwise bravado. Becoming almost obsessed with his new moonlighting job, Hit Man gets repeat comedy hits as his various disguises turn him into a police department asset at the displeasure of his disgraced colleague.
Hit Man stars Glen Powell, Adria Arjona and Austin Amelio. While there aren’t any big time movie stars by today’s standards, Glen Powell is a rising star on the back of his roles in Anyone But You and box office sensation Top Gun: Maverick. Having had roles in Everybody Wants Some!! and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, this isn’t his first collaboration with Richard Linklater and there’s a shared confidence that burns brightly in Hit Man. Powell is quite brilliant in this role, almost as if it was written with him in mind, able to play it down and up with that plucky wink-in-the-eye charm that’s become something of a trademark.
“Nice to know all those hours of Duck Hunt were not wasted(!)
Another surprise is Adria Arjona who is equally up to the task, counterbalancing Powell with a sweet yet sultry take on a wannabe widow. Together the co-stars enjoy Mr and Mrs Smith screen chemistry owing to the concept’s duplicity and creating magic whenever they share the scene. Rounding off the best performances is Austin Amelio, whose character’s sleaze and jealous vibration foster a number of funny moments. While not getting enough screen time, Retta and Sanjay Rao’s comedy duo moments add some comic relief.
Hit Man starts off a bit slow and in typical Linklater fashion. There’s an awkward, ordinary, maybe even underwhelming aspect to immerse us in Gary’s world and the life-like quality of his storytelling. Normally directors would want to hook audiences with something cool or some flashy visuals but in a film that prizes actors, characters and story… it’s this slowburn approach that ultimately wins the day. Coming off a movie like Top Gun: Maverick, there’s no wind rushing through your hair at any stage but the character interplay and suspenseful dynamics do create a seesawing effect as Gary and Don try to turn this into a buddy movie.
Hit Man is a fun and entertaining jaunt that spares visual effects to create a popcorn movie with the raw basics. This is refreshing in a day of all-out spectacle, leaning back on the old school charm of real star power, true talent and smart scriptwriting. Touted as an action comedy, its genre mix and tone is more in line with the George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez caper, Out of Sight. While the action is fairly low-key, the laughs are genuine and the romance is intense – making Hit Man as unassumingly funny as it is sexy and dangerous.
The bottom line: Entertaining
