“A professor moonlighting as a hit man of sorts for his city police department, descends into dangerous, dubious territory when he finds himself attracted to a woman who enlists his services.”
Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Richard Linklater, Glen Powell, Skip Hollandsworth
Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona
Release Date: June 7, 2024
IMDB
Glen Powell is having a moment. He emerged from nowhere with the very good Netflix romantic comedy, Set It Up (2018). Four years later, Tom Cruise’s nostalgic wet dream Top Gun: Maverick (2022) gave us more Powell, and then the American heartthrob dipped back into the loving waters of rom coms and matched with Sydney Sweeney for Anyone But You (2023). A few weeks ago, America gets its first look at Powell donning a cowboy getup with the trailer for Twisters (2024), and now he’s back for an action-comedy adventure with Hit Man (2024).
What can’t this man do?
I think Hollywood is on a mission to make Glen Powell look attractive in every possible way. He gets to be the uptight businessman with a hidden heart of gold in Set It Up. In Maverick, he’s the rebel boy in military getup, and Anyone But You decides to ignore clothes at times with some Hawaiian shirt style freedom. As if the man didn’t have enough ethos he could pull off, Twisters awakens everyone to a different type of stud-muffin. A man this attractive should not be able to pull off every look.
And then there is Hit Man. Colin Powell is literally changing everything about himself depending on what personna he wants to moonlight as a fake hit man for. It could be European. It could be a bike gang member. Who knows? The point is that Holly knows that the world wants more Powell in as many different ways as they can, so why not have a movie where he can be multiple different types of personalities in one screening?
That’s my conspiracy theory. And it is a fact.
Hit Man is directed by five-time Oscar nominated Richard Linklater. His previous movie was Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood (2022), which starred many famous voices, including the man of the hour, Glen Powell. This is actually the fourth collaboration between the pair. Hit Man is unique among the rest because it has Powell’s name as a writer’s credit, which will be the first time since 2011 that the actor gets official credit for dipping his quill in the ink.
The fact that this story, which is a great premise for a movie, is based on a real life situation, is wild. Wow, that was a lot of commas. Taking inspiration from a Texas Monthly article written by Skip Hollandsworth, the story of Hit Man centers around Gary Johnson (Glen Powell). His day job is as a college professor, but Johnson has the unique moonlighting career of pretending to be a hitman for his local police department. During one of his missions, Johnson falls for the beautiful yet unnamed women played by Adria Arjona. She was in talks of wanting her husband killed, and a few days after her meetup with Johnson, said husband is indeed, very dead.
Now this ho-hum eccentric guy is now in the midst of a sticky situation. The treacherous territory Johnson trotted himself into may require him to use the set of skills he only pretended to possess.
If we are being honest, my expectations for Hit Man are pretty high. The trailer for the movie seems to have minimal Netflix pannash spilled over it. The pace appears to be fast and frantic. The chemistry is hot and spicy. Hit Man doesn’t need to hit all the marks. Just most of them. Don’t leave the audience wanting. Don’t pull The Gray Man (2002). I actually have expectations for Hit Man, and let’s hope it at leasts hits its mark.
Hit Man comes out on Netflix on June 7.
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