In his more than three decades doing it to date, Richard Linklater has had an erratic career directing movies. He’s made a small handful of classics, several other worthy efforts, and a few cult favorites, but also a whole bunch of middle-of-the-road misfires that went nowhere. His latest feature, Hit Man, is a pleasant enough diversion that settles a little too comfortably into a streaming niche on Netflix, but never sparks to life quite enough to have justified a wide theatrical release.

The most interesting, and perhaps even troubling, aspect of the movie is the ethical conundrum its creation and existence represent. Discussing that will require some plot spoilers I’ll clearly mark at the end of this review.

Title:	Hit Man
Year of Release:	2024
Director:	Richard Linklater
Watched On:	Netflix

Glen Powell is likely best known to most audiences for his supporting role in the blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick. He’d also previously worked with director Linklater in the minor efforts Fast Food Nation and Everybody Wants Some!! Here he takes center stage as Gary Johnson, a mild-mannered, pretty dorky, and generally uninteresting college psychology professor. Gary’s wife left him, not due to marital strife, but just due to boredom, and his students can barely pay attention to him in class.

To pay some bills, Gary has a sideline gig doing tech support for the New Orleans Police Department. He’s one of the guys who sits in the van to make sure the wire recording equipment works while undercover cop Jasper (Austin Amelio from The Walking Dead) strolls into a shady situation to bust some lowlifes. However, on their latest outing, Jasper is suspended from duty and pulled from the assignment at the last minute, leaving no choice except for Gary to take his place. Reluctant, if not outright terrified, Gary agrees, puts on his best game face, and proves a total natural at undercover work. Posing as a professional contract killer, he gets the suspect to hire him on a recording to murder another person, upon which the real police walk in and make the arrest.

This first assignment goes so well that, before long, Gary becomes the New Orleans P.D.’s go-to undercover agent on all sorts of murder-for-hire schemes. He takes to the job quickly, and becomes completely immersed in crafting new disguises and identities to fit every situation. To his mind, he sees this as a fascinating psychological study, both of why people commit terrible crimes, and into the question of what truly defines the “self.” If he takes on the personality and traits of a character he’s invented thoroughly enough and for long enough, at what point is it no longer a performance? When does he actually become that person?

These questions are put to the test when Gary, posing as a hit man named “Ron,” is introduced to Madison (Adria Arjona), a suffering housewife who thinks she wants to hire him to kill her abusive husband. Ron and Madison have instant and undeniable chemistry, so much that he talks her out of her plan and advises her to simply leave her husband instead. Later, the two meet up again, outside police observation, and begin a secret affair, the woman believing the whole time that her boyfriend is an assassin. As he develops deeper feelings for her, Gary has to question whom he really is – the man he started as, or the man he pretends to be? Further complications ensue when Jasper, the original undercover cop, returns to work and susses out this relationship, and when Madison’s husband turns up dead after all.

In a lot of ways, Hit Man has the makings of a traditional film noir thriller, with what could be a femme fatale seductress leading our hapless protagonist down a path to ruin. But this isn’t that type of movie at all. It’s more of a romantic comedy with a fairly unorthodox meet-cute angle. The stars have great chemistry (even if it’s a little difficult to suspend disbelief at first for Glen Powell as a nerd), the movie has some good laughs, and the romance works. The whole thing is very low-key and a little lightweight, but it has plenty of charm. Lacking any sort of spectacle or bombast, the film never really stood a chance of surviving long in the current theatrical market, but it’s exactly the sort of thing that makes a perfectly enjoyable view on streaming.

I have just one little qualm that nags at me…

Big Time Spoiler Territory

The film opens by announcing itself as, “A Somewhat True Story.” Written by director Linklater and star Powell, the script was adapted from a 2001 article in Texas Monthly magazine about an actual college teacher named Gary Johnson who worked as an undercover agent with the New Orleans police. That much bears some resemblance to fact.

Most movies allegedly based on true stories wind up being highly fictionalized, so I should probably applaud one that admits up front that it’s going to fudge the truth. However, this one takes a wild swing from reality in the final act when (fictional) Gary and Madison kill cop Jasper, get away with murder, and live happily ever after. The end credits then immediately dedicate the film to the real Gary Johnson, acknowledging that he committed “Zero Murders” and that part was all made up.

Perhaps if the actual Gary Johnson were still alive, I might feel a little more comfortable with him presumably being in on the joke, but the fact that Johnson died in 2022 leaves me feeling uneasy instead, as if the movie is possibly defiling the reputation of a man who can no longer defend himself. On the other hand, I’m well aware that the film production process takes a very long time for movies to get developed and made, and it may very well be possible that Johnson knew all about Linklater’s plans and signed off on them prior to his death. Even so, if I were in the director’s shoes, I think the real Johnson’s death would have prompted me to, at the very least, radically change the last act of the script, if not abandon the project altogether and work on something else.

Video Streaming

Hit Man may be credited as either a 2023 or a 2024 film, depending on whether you consider its official release date to be its debut at the Venice International Film Festival in September of last year, or its commercial release in 2024. I side with the latter. After Venice, the movie went to the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was picked up by Netflix for distribution. Netflix released it in a small handful of theaters in May of this year with virtually no promotion, followed by a much better publicized streaming premiere this past Friday, June 7, 2024.

The movie streams in 4K HDR, but isn’t much of a visual stunner. The 2.39:1 image is slightly grainy. Detail and sharpness are fine, if not especially notable. Contrast is a little flat, and colors are perfectly adequate. This isn’t a bad-looking movie, but nor does the photography do much of anything to call attention to itself, for either good or ill.

The soundtrack likewise seems to have absolutely no reason to be mixed or encoded in Dolby Atmos format, yet it was anyway. The movie is mostly dialogue, with very little music or attention-grabbing sound effects. For what it’s worth, that dialogue is all very clear, and I have no complaints about the fidelity of anything else. However, whatever faint ambience or minimal music bleed may make their way to the surround speakers is barely discernible. If anything at all is directed overhead, I expect you’d need to put your ear right up to a speaker to confirm its presence.