Hit Man: Richard Linklater’s Easygoing Modern Noir Ponders Identity
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A
The world needs more Richard Linklater movies. He makes films that are consistently intelligent, enjoyable, well-structured, and satisfying. Even in his loosest, happiest movies, there is always a question or a subtext to ponder. He’s as much philosopher as filmmaker.
His magic is that he doesn’t have to take you to hell to make you think. Nor does he make you struggle to figure out what his message is, if any. He's not talking about good versus evil, but about ordinary experiences that make life worthwhile. And he is never, ever sensational or cliche.
Linklater has an almost supernatural ease with story. A lot of the times his movies seem to be so naturalistic that they feel offhand, and yet they stick with you, in the best ways.
Which brings us to his latest, Hit Man, which he co-wrote with star Glen Powell. It’s a smart, easygoing, funky modern noir, all the more interesting because it’s based on a true story. The source material is a magazine article written by Skip Hollandsworth published in Texas Monthly.
Powell plays Gary Johnson, a mild-mannered, nondescript bachelor philosophy professor. He might be mild-mannered, but he’s engaged with his students and the world. He likes to tinker with things, including electronics. At night he puts that interest to work, moonlighting for the New Orleans police as a technical resource guy, part of an undercover team that does the sting operations on ordinary people trying to hire a hit man.
He is one of three people listening to transactions going down from a truck outside of whatever the meeting place is. His in-truck colleagues are Phil (Sanjay Rao) and the team’s leader, the droll Claudette (Retta). The fourth team member Jasper (Austin Amelio) is the undercover cop who poses as the hit man. He’s a good choice — wiry with jangly energy and quick to anger. Jasper looks like a cliche of a small-time criminal.
One day Gary shows up to a stakeout just as Claudette has learned that Jasper has been suspended and can’t do the operation. With the target already inside a restaurant waiting to meet the hit man named “Ron,” Claudette decides that Gary is going to sub in. Her reasoning is that he’s listened to enough of Jasper’s work to know the patter.
Gary is, of course, freaked out. He gets a little bit of coaching from the annoyed and resentful Jasper, some of it about how to be tough and aggressive, and nervously plunges. No one — not his colleagues, those of us in the audience and, especially, not even Gary — knows what’s going to come out of his mouth until he starts to talk.
It’s a great scene! Ordinary guy Gary is suddenly role-playing as the hit man with a tough-looking guy who looks like he could do the job himself. Gary pulls it off and is asked to take over while Jasper’s suspension continues. Gary, who we already know likes to tinker, begins dabbling in costumes and accents, developing different characters for different clients.
That is until he meets Madison (Adria Arjona), a beautiful young woman who wants her abusive husband murdered. Gary sees the vulnerability and fear in her. Instead of taking her money and sealing her fate, he suggests she use the cash to leave and set herself up in a new life. She takes his advice and soon enough they meet again and romance, among other things, ensues.
So now Gary has moved across a personal line by allowing himself to move into a relationship. And he’s also crossed professional, ethical, and moral lines. But he’s still a nice guy, right?
So, let’s circle back to the philosophy part of this. At the start of the school year, Gary gives his students an assignment. He asks which of them really knows themselves, and then challenges them to observe whether that sense of self holds as they go through the year. How firmly do any of us know ourselves or what we’re capable of? How fixed are our personalities?
Linklater doesn’t hammer this point, but the movie unfolds against the backdrop of that question.
The clearest example of that is of course Gary, who gets to try out a series of personae as variations of this hit-man-for-hire named Ron, ranging from the ordinary to the ridiculous. And then there are plenty of issues of morality, given that we’re dealing with people who want to murder someone, and Gary/Ron’s crossing various lines in terms of truth, and maybe even the limits he'd imposed on himself out of shyness or fear? But will it ultimately change Gary?
Since this is Richard Linklater, the movie is subtle and enjoyable with a nice layer of complexity that builds in as it progresses. And he has a terrific partner in the naturally charismatic Powell, who tackles the changes thrown in Gary’s direction with such ease that you feel like you’re going to run into the guy at the popcorn stand on the way out.
It’s a deceptively simple movie, a lot of fun. And it doesn’t require you to do a deep dive to really enjoy it. But for those who are so inclined, there are things to think about as you leave the theatre.
Hit Man. Directed by Richard Linklater, written by Richard Linklater and Glenn Powell. Starring Glenn Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, Rette, and Sanjay Rao. In theatres May 24.