Hit Man review

With a terrific blend of comedy, drama, romance, intrigue and a game cast delivering winning memorable performances, Hit Man hits all the marks to make for one of 2024’s best films.

Glen Powell (Anyone But You) plays Gary Johnson, a college psychology professor who leads a fairly standard, routine life. Except for the part where he dabbles in a little part time work with the New Orleans Police Department, assisting with wire taps for investigations.

When the department’s undercover agent Jasper (Austin Amelio, Fear the Walking Dead) gets suspended, Gary’s forced to fill in as a hitman. Gary proves so adept at it that Jasper’s team of Claudette (Retta) and Phil (Sanjay Rao) are fine working with the “stand-in” full-time. And Gary surprisingly finds the undercover gig immensely rewarding.

Fully committing to the role, Gary studies online videos on makeup and dialect techniques to create the ideal hitman for prospective clients. Once the client specifically outlines what they want him to do, the team makes their arrest. For Gary, he can actually say his work is saving lives.

Powell, who also co-wrote the film, has been one of the best parts of whatever he’s been in since 2014’s The Expendables 3. He was a constant scene-stealer in Scream Queens and made a natural quasi-antagonist lead in films like Top Gun: Maverick.

Powell’s career has taken a very similar trajectory to a Bradley Cooper or Ryan Reynolds. Now he’s onto the leading man phase and it doesn’t look like he’s going to be leaving the spotlight anytime soon.

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The film is loosely based on the life of the actual Gary Johnson, who was legit a college professor who took on a “side gig” posing as a hitman for the Houston police department. Johnson’s efforts helped lead to over 60 arrests. Skip Hollandsworth wrote an article about Johnson’s life for Texas Monthly Magazine, which served as the basis for the movie.

Hit Man deviates from the actual events with the introduction of Madison (Adria Arjona, Andor), a prospective client in an abusive marriage. Immediately smitten, Gary — in his cooler hitman guise of Ron — convinces Madison to get out of the marriage and start a new life. After some time passes, Madison reconnects with Ron. Although he knows this is crossing a line, Madison makes a convincing argument that Ron/Gary can have a no-strings attached relationship.

Arjona is sizzling in the role playing the seductive vamp one moment and a likable character just happy to enjoy life again. Hit Man is solid enough for the first act, but it gets so much more intriguing with Arjona’s arrival. She and Powell have a dazzling chemistry that conveys how easily Gary and Madison could fall for one another.

One of the more impressive aspects to Hit Man is how Director/co-writer Richard Linklater (Boyhood — get it on Amazon) properly gauges when it’s time to advance to the next level.

Before the comedic aspect of Gary getting into all of his hitman alter egos gets stale, the film goes into the romantic subplot. And just when the film settles into that groove it’s onto the dramatic and very funny final act.

There were a lot of ways for the film to go off the rails with a bad decision here or an unnecessary twist there, but Linklater navigates it through any and all potential sticking points.

This role allowed Powell to show his range without ever needing to be showy or silly while giving his co-stars ample moments to shine. Arjona is stellar and Amelio is excellent as the semi-shady cop whose motives are always in question. Retta, Rao and Gralen Bryant Banks have some comedic moments but aren’t just in the film as bumbling comic relief.

Hit Man is a smooth chameleon able to adapt to whatever genre it needs to cover at that exact scene. It makes for an unpredictable and unexpectedly exhilarating ride that’s worth dishing out the time investment to enjoy.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Netflix

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