Editor’s Note: This review originally ran as part of our coverage of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, and we’re re-publishing it with the film’s wider release. Check out our extensive review slate of TIFF 2023, revisit our official preview and complete archives of prior editions.
Richard Linklater and Skip Hollingsworth were made for each other. On one side, you’ve got one of the best filmmakers to emerge from (and continue to work in) the Lone Star state, and on the other, you’ve got one of the best True Crime writers to ever sit behind a typewriter, who has spent the past few decades at Texas Monthly penning the kind of winding narrative non-fiction that seduces readers regardless of their taste for the macabre. Both acknowledge the sometimes tawdry nature of the genres and mediums they operate in (while frequently indulging in its excesses), but through skill and craft, find the poetry present. At first blush, it’d be reasonable to assume that Linklater’s last adaptation of Hollingsworth’s work, 2011’s Bernie, would be the closest comparison to Hit Man, his fantastic new film.
Though they share a similar comic sensibility, albeit one less rooted in small-town Texas life and the colorful cast of characters that inhabit those sun-bleached structures, Hit Man finds its genesis in a moment from another one of Linklater’s recent films – Everybody Wants Some!!, which is a masterpiece on par with Dazed and Confused and Slacker, and I will fight anybody who says otherwise – that features Glen Powell, this film’s lead, essentially commenting on what he does here: Becoming a different fucking weirdo for a day at a time, all the while discovering who you are. Only this time, the hits served up by the cast aren’t in service of getting runners on base. They’re would-be contract killings.
Hit Man is very – and I cannot stress this enough, VERY – loosely based on Hollingsworth’s article about a man named Gary Johnson, played here by Powell, a college professor who moonlighted for the Houston Police Department as a tech guy. He is, to put it plainly, a nerdy motherfucker, more content with hanging out with his cats and diving deep into the realms of group psychology. His first marriage failed because he was just too boring (though he maintains a great relationship with his ex-wife), and when it comes to the kind of undercover work that he works on, he’s the guy sitting in the van, ensuring that the mics work for surveillance. But this all changes when Jasper (Austin Amello), the undercover operative who normally runs point on these operations, gets suspended for being a generally crooked asshole, and Gary’s essentially forced into making contact with the suspect. See, he’s part of a sting operation task force that walks the entrapment line, in which operatives pose as hitmen, soliciting offers from folks who want their spouses or family members or associates murdered by a professional. Everything in the world – from Gary’s haircut to his jorts to his wire-frame glasses to his geeky voice – indicates that he’ll fuck the job up almost immediately.
Except he doesn’t. Sitting across a diner booth from a hardened biker, Gary manages to evoke the guy’s mental image of what a hitman should be: Tough, business-like, yet detached from the nature of his work. It’s ferociously charismatic, and the guy eventually relents and hands him an envelope full of money, telling him how he wants the job done. The cops swarm him once he leaves the restaurant, and Gary feels a thrill. He never knew he could fill this niche; even better, he is good at it. So, even when Jasper comes back from his suspension, the Chief chooses Gary to keep being their point man (which pisses off the “real” cop to no end), and Gary keeps on crafting characters specifically suited to the psychological needs of the people that seek out his services, doing levels of background research that would put most SAG members to shame. One person wants a good ol’ boy who he can shoot skeet with. Another wants an icy Russian, complete with a cigar and leather jacket. Another wants a raincoat-clad English psychopath.
It goes off without a hitch until Gary meets Maddy (Adria Ajarna), a battered housewife who wants him to kill her husband. He instantly feels a distinct ping of sympathy for the woman, and, in a breach of protocol, he tells her not to go through with it. She doesn’t, Jasper’s pissed, but Gary feels a-okay about the whole thing. That is until she texts him on his work phone – still thinking he’s the hitman – and invites him on what looks like a date after she separates from her abusive husband. This is where Linklater’s skill at creating a sense of laconic escalation within his narratives, sort of like a slow-moving line of dominos slowly making its way towards a whole house of them, really starts to excel. Gary falls in love with a woman who believes he’s a murderer and is absolutely willing to indulge her in her fantasy of him. And then the husband comes back into the picture. And then Jasper starts to catch on to what’s going on. And then, the husband shows up one day and asks Gary to kill Maddy. Cue the Glenn Frey because the heat is on, motherfuckers.
Hit Man spends pretty much every moment directly with its protagonist – things happening outside his purview would ruin a lot of the reveals – and Powell, who has never managed to find the kind of lead role that would show off his absurd talents, soaks up every second of it. This is a dynamite performance, full of life and ebullience, as Gary slowly starts to Daniel Day-Lewis himself into something approaching a sexy beast through all of his research and the roles he creates. It’s an ugly duckling story if the young swan was planning on sending those mallards a few counties over for a ten-year bid, and if the swan didn’t just stop at ducklings and moved on to all the waterfowl in the area, and Powell plays it as such, emphasizing the inherent comedy in this kind of transformation. Importantly, this is a role that is directly informed by Powell’s most recent work – try and count all of the variations of Tom Cruise that Powell winds up inevitably doing when Gary meets with suspects, and you’ll probably have a headache (hell, there are even references to roles that Cruise didn’t get as little in-jokes along the way). It is, in truth, tremendous work, the kind of thing that would deserve a year-end nod if awards ceremonies cared about comedy (or if the ones that did hadn’t essentially promised their statuettes to Ryan Gosling, courtesy of Warner Bros.’ breaking banks with Barbie).
That last joke may prove to be what most folks walk away from this year remembering about Hit Man for two reasons. First, prior to TIFF, Linklater rake-stepped his way into a discussion about the current state of cinema and wound up Sideshow Bob-groaning in the lead-up to what would normally be a wholly laudatory celebration of his talents. Second, Netflix bought it for a record-high price in Toronto, which means that it’ll take a backseat to laundry in the living room instead of being enjoyed alongside a boisterous audience in a theater. In a way, that’s the perfect sort of ironic comeuppance that would find root in one of his films: After decrying the effects of algorithmically generated content, his best film since Everybody Wants Some — and his most on-brand, given his best work deals with identity in some way or another — will go straight to the poster boys of that revolution. But if anything dropped by a streaming service in 2023 can pry somebody away from right swipes and retweets, it’s the trio of Linklater, Hollingsworth, and Powell, making the kind of high-powered populist art that they want to see in the world.