Review: Hit Man

Image courtesy of Netflix.

"They don't make them like that anymore" is a phrase used to denote works that seem out of style with the present formats and trends, often to the medium's detriment. Richard Linklater's smart and highly entertaining "Hit Man" is among those in the like that category - in this case, movies aimed at adults that emphasize character and great writing, and that bounce around ideas.

It's also the type of picture in which you're never sure which direction it will take. "Hit Man" starts off as a dark comedy before becoming a romance, then veering into dark noir territory, and then ending once again on a comedic note. But rather than feeling as if you're being jerked about by the film's tonal shifts, Linklater masters these switches deftly.

As the film opens, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a bookish New Orleans professor with two cats and a side gig assisting the police department with planting bugs and connecting wires in a surveillance van. But when the department's sleazy undercover agent, Jasper (Austin Amelio), gets suspended for some type of abuse on a group of teenagers that we can only imagine, Gary is shuttled into Jasper's role in which he pretends to be a hit man for hire.

Gary meets with people who are looking to bump off people - current and ex-spouses, bosses, rivals, etc. - and finds that he's really good at improvising the hit man character. He begins dressing differently for the role by researching in advance the person with whom he's meeting. He's so convincing - especially when coming up on the spot with detailed descriptions of how he'll dispose of bodies - that the police department gives him the job full time. His conviction rate is also impressive.

But Gary is thrown for a loop when he meets a shy woman named Madison (Adria Arjona), who is looking for her abusive asshole husband to get knocked off. Gary takes a shine to her and finds a way to discourage her from going through with the hit, thereby preventing the police department from getting an arrest. Later, he checks in on Madison and the two begin having a relationship, which is unknown to all of Gary's police co-workers, other than the reprehensible Jasper, who spots them out at an ice cream shop.

A run-in with Madison's husband and the later discovery that he has been murdered lead police to consider Madison as the prime suspect. Gary finds himself juggling his relationship with her with his ability to be able to bullshit the police enough to keep them off her trail. "Hit Man" starts off as a dark comedy and eventually just becomes dark.

It's hard to imagine many other directors being able to balance the ever-shifting tones of "Hit Man" as well as Linklater, a great dabbler of genre and one of the few unparalleled in the gift of character gab. There's a lot of talking in "Hit Man" - which shouldn't surprise you, considering its director is responsible for such dialogue-driven classics as the "Before" films, "Waking Life," "Boyhood," and "Dazed and Confused" - and it's such a pleasure to witness these characters' repartee, which is often witty and insightful in the manner you'd expect from a Linklater film.

This is a picture that deserves a wider audience than the one it'll likely get on Netflix, which on the one hand has funded great films from great directors in recent years - but also buried them. It's a shame that "Hit Man" didn't get wider theatrical release. Regardless, it's one of the most enjoyable movies of 2024 so far and one that I'd highly recommend.