Hit Man (2024)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Killer Smile

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Richard Linklater's Hit Man feels rather slight on a first viewing, but that hardly matters when it's so smart and so wildly entertaining. Glen Powell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater (based on a 2001 article by Skip Hollandsworth), stars as Gary Johnson, a mild-mannered college professor — single, with two cats — who occasionally helps the police with tech stuff like bugs and surveillance. One day, an undercover agent is suddenly suspended, and Gary is asked to step in and pretend to be a hit man.

It turns out he's amazing at this job, convincing the target of his qualifications with his descriptions of how to dispose of corpses. This continues, as Gary comes up with many different personas, each to fit the occasion, until he meets Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona). Trouble begins when he convinces her not to hire a hit man to dispose of her abusive husband, and they begin to act on their mutual attraction. Then her husband winds up dead anyway.

It's technically a "lie plot," but Linklater and Powell handle things so loosely and with so much joy that it never feels false. It just flows. Powell, who was a standout in Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!!, is incredible here, and he and Arjona are on fire with the kind of chemistry we rarely see anymore. This a movie that explores role-playing, not only by the actors onscreen, but also the subtle ways all of us automatically adjust our behaviors depending on who we are with. Of a spiritual piece with Linklater's Bernie, Hit Man is a lightweight crime movie that will likely get better, and resonate deeper, with each new viewing.