Hit Man Review: A Misfire from Linklater!
Hit Man first premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September followed by the Toronto International Film Festival. This month it had its premiere at the New York Film Festival after getting a Netflix distribution deal. With Richard Linklater as the writer-director and starring one of Top Gun: Maverick’s favorite faces, Glen Powell, this action-comedy has everything going for it.
Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a college professor who on the side works for the Houston police department. When one of his co-workers finds himself in hot water and must step down as the undercover “hit man” for the department, Gary must take his position, finding that he is excellent at it. On one of his missions he meets with an attractive young woman, Maddy (Adria Arjona) looking for a hit man to take out her husband. Thus begins a romantic affair that puts Gary’s job and life in a compromising position.
Linklater hive, rise up! The team behind the #NYFF61 Spotlight selection, HIT MAN, have arrived in New York! pic.twitter.com/OjlaThE9MC
— 61st New York Film Festival (@TheNYFF) October 4, 2023
Hit Man starts off strongly writing Glen Powell’s character of Gary Johnson in a humorous way in which he is a professor trying to connect with his students, a bird watcher, and surprisingly an undercover cop all in one. His fellow co-workers, including actors Marietta Sirleaf, Austin Amelio, and Sanjay Rao, are a charming and funny bunch who take their job seriously (well, maybe not Austin Amelio) while giving the audience chuckling dialogue.
Linklater’s writing feels relaxed and seamless in a way he has mastered with films like Everybody Wants Some and Boyhood. However, once Maddy is introduced the film follows a downhill trajectory into very conventional territory that feels just like a classic Netflix rom-com. Gary’s character is written to make the audience see his obvious “nerdiness” and want to see “cool guy” Glen Powell come out as a result. However, Gary’s blindness to the first attractive woman he seems feels lazy, transforming a smart yet mysterious man into yet another romantic comedy dummy.
Sandra Adair, editor of HIT MAN, on editing dialogue pic.twitter.com/TJaxwU6HYz
— 61st New York Film Festival (@TheNYFF) October 3, 2023
Richard Linklater’s concept of identity, consciousness, and the ability or inability to change is a strong subplot because of the way Gary is transforming himself as a result of having to “pretend” to be a strong, savvy, and hardcore hit man. What would have been interesting is following this concept to see Gary find himself in hot water because of his own actions, however he decides to change the trajectory of his life for Maddy, a character not only he barely knows but that the audience barely knows as well. The rest of the film feels like a horny femme fatale movie that diminishes what it began as at the start of the movie.
It is a shame that Adria Arjona was given nothing substantial to work with, being the meak wife who decides to hire someone to assassinate her husband, which is somehow supposed to make her “stronger.” For the rest of the film she becomes a woman who can now fit into the mold she wants, which in the film is just a classic sexy femme fatale stereotype.
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With an opportunity to utilize the stereotype in an inventive way, Hit Man feels as if Linklater wrote the first half and the Netflix studio decided to finish it up, using their same boring and lazy romcom structure. The movie is gaining positive reactions from critics lucky enough to see it at film festivals, however, when adding up the sum of its parts, it is a mixed bag.
‘Hit Man (2023)’ Rating – 2.5/5
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