Linklater’s ‘Hit Man’ Is the Best Possible Use of Glen Powell’s No-Face

By Lindsay Traves | Film | June 7, 2024 |

By Lindsay Traves | Film | June 7, 2024 |

That’s not to diminish what Powell is capable of, which is to slip effortlessly between the roles of a dorky character and a leading man. And that’s what Richard Linklater capitalized on for the pair’s tale (Linklater and Powell co-wrote) of the part-time undercover agent who posed as a hitman.

Taking inspiration from an article by Skip Hollandsworth, Powell and Linklater crafted a story about a guy who gets a bit too good at toggling identities. Powell leads as Gary Johnson, named for a real faux hitman who hid all over Houston, Texas (their movie relocates him to New Orleans). Johnson is mild-mannered, lives with his two cats, and moonlights as a pretend killer to capture would-be clients of a hitman. For the fictitious outing, Powell’s real-man-inspired version of Gary glides through his otherwise mundane life until he’s kicked off of his stringent path by the eyes of a beautiful mark. In disguise as Ron, Gary is bewitched by prospective client, Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman looking to hire someone to kill her abusive husband. Unable to commit to collecting the evidence against her, Gary encourages Madison to take her money and start anew, setting the two down an unstable path of dangerous love where Gary is falling in love with his mark, and Madison is falling for whom she believes to be a contract killer.

Linklater’s romantic sense of animal lust is ever present in this complex story of identity. The man arguably most known for movies where he’s thrown romance into slice-of-life tales takes that with him into a different sort of story that’s scented like a crime drama but probably comes closer to being a noir in the same genre column as Double Indemnity. But with that, the film seems the most interested in being a romantic fantasy, including made-up Harlequin Romance-looking novels in its opening exposition, then jogging into a story about bedroom fantasies made of sexy criminals in leather jackets who know their way around a gun.

While Arjona holds the bit together by virtue of being endlessly magnetic, balancing being a damsel in distress and a powerful force, this movie belongs to Powell. Peppered into the movie are clips of Gary in various costumes as different characters capturing a host of different prospective clients. It’s a testament to his ability to melt into different roles and his swagger in general, just how different his appearance is between Gary and Ron. Gary is meek, a dork, and has hair begging to be trimmed. Ron is sexy, assuming, and has hair begging to be touched. He’s unique in the way that it does track when characters recommend him for the undercover role by virtue of having such a forgettable face, but also has the ability to morph into someone you can’t forget. Powell worked with Linklater previously on Everybody Wants Some!! and Fast Food Nation and it seems the pairing allows Powell to play more interesting roles.

Wrapped around the romance is a story steeped in philosophy and psychology about becoming the person you want to be, and this serves to showcase what a smart filmmaker Linklater is (and presumably, Powell). Through Gary’s academic machinations on the elements of the self, Hit Man explores how a person can or can’t change who they really are. Be it with playful jokes about “Ron” and Madison’s bedroom roleplay, or his lectures on the id, ego, and superego, the movie starts to ask what makes us who we are, and whether we’re a collection of the experiences we’ve previously had. While certainly consequential, these themes are what raises this film above an otherwise shallow romance, but they don’t get in the way of what is ultimately a fantasy story about unlikely and star-crossed lovers.

Linklater’s latest is a worthy installment in a wonderful director’s filmography. The two worked from a real story that’s stranger than fiction, then made it more romantic and funny than reality.