The Many Faces of a Hit Man

They didn’t break the mould once they made Glen Powell. That’s to not say the actor isn’t gifted—after first actually noticing him as a strapping baseball hunk within the filmmaker Richard Linklater’sEveryone Needs Some!!, I figured Hollywood would take fast discover of his charms. Since then, he’s vaulted to fame in motion pictures equivalent toSet It Up,High Gun: Maverick, andAnybody however You. However he’s a well-known form of star, the sort of big-screen hottie with a twinkling smile who can slot proper into any previous blockbuster. And Linklater makes use of that dazzling anonymity to perfection in Hit Man, a film that’s nicely conscious of what a looker Powell is, however equally cognizant of his chameleonic nature.

Primarily based on a Texas Month-to-month article a few real-life police contractor, Hit Man is an ethereal comedy (written by Linklater and Powell) that hones and deploys the lead actor’s on-screen picture in methods I couldn’t imagine. Powell performs Gary Johnson, an unassuming faculty professor who moonlights with the New Orleans Police Division as a fake contract killer. He meets with potential purchasers, then helps the cops seize them because the purchasers organize for him to homicide somebody. The movie and article level out that the career of “hit man” is principally an invented one—this isn’t a job that anybody will be certain is actual. However America’s movie-addled thought of 1 is all that Gary must be.

Linklater has labored in each possible style over his lengthy profession, however whether or not he’s making futuristic sci-fi like A Scanner Darkly or a true-crime drama like Bernie, his storytelling all the time has a candy form of shagginess to it. That is true of Hit Man, significantly in its first act: Gary, though pleasant and good-looking, is a fairly bland man who stumbles into his part-time police gig virtually by happenstance, after which leans into it like he’s taking an intro improv course. He buys garments, wigs, and pretend mustaches and impacts humorous accents, greeting every potential consumer as a brand new felony stereotype (a biker dude, a Russian mobster, a fussy sociopath).

[Read: Before Sunrise, 20 years later]

It is enjoyable to look at Powell slip into costume after costume, basically a long-running joke to the viewers about his versatility. Though Hollywood has been fast to solid him because the assured romantic lead, Powell reveals Gary to be an individual who will get perverse pleasure out of pretending to be another person (and doing a superb job of it). Linklater, too, is having enjoyable with the picture of America’s everyman, making a comedic noir the place a seemingly mild-mannered hero has a shifty streak. The work Gary’s doing can be slightly icky: basically tricking individuals into confessing their murderous needs on tape, reasonably than catching them within the act.

Nonetheless, the individuals Gary is ensnaring largely current as felony lowlifes till he runs into Maddy Masters (Adria Arjona), a girl looking for Gary’s “hit man” to maintain her abusive husband. As in any good noir, Gary instantly falls for this stunning lady, and that smooth spot threatens to be his total undoing, drawing him right into a tangled internet of precise criminality too tasty to spoil additional. The movie’s spiral into romantic drama wouldn’t work with out Powell and Arjona’s crackling chemistry. Arjona has pulled her weight in stale supporting roles in a number of unhealthy motion motion pictures (Morbius, Pacific Rim Rebellion), however this can be a beautiful star flip. She matches Powell’s appeal and raises the stakes of what had been a extra frivolous crime comedy.

That’s what Linklater can do higher than anybody when he’s locked in, although: flip a low-key, humorous indie into one thing extra profound simply by way of his mastery of tone and his belief in his actors. He’s been on an odd run of late, making grownup dramas, equivalent to Final Flag Flying and The place’d You Go, Bernadette, that felt leaden of their storytelling. Hit Man is his greatest film since Everyone Needs Some!!, a testomony to the power of his partnership with Powell; it’s additionally only a horny, enjoyable film for grown-ups that believes in its story reasonably than empty spectacle. Considered one of Hit Man’s climactic scenes received awed gasps out of my viewers akin to these Powell had earned for his aerial derring-do in High Gun; this can be a uncommon romantic comedy to see with a roaring crowd.