How often does a film promise fun, suspense, and genuine romance, and—miracle of miracles—actually deliver all three? “Hit Man” is the kind of briskly entertaining, tonally slippery, deeply pleasurable movie experience that leaves you with a big, silly grin in the dark, and a faint suspicion you might’ve just been lovingly cheated. And isn’t that the magic of movies? Richard Linklater, whose work is so often preoccupied with talky, meandering souls lost somewhere between philosophy and the parking lot, here lays down a genre bender that barrels through romantic comedy, crime caper, and existential disguise, and—against all odds—makes it look almost too easy.
Let’s get it out of the way: I don’t generally line up for romantic comedies. Usually, they’re cinematic comfort food for people with more faith in happy accidents and lightly quirky meet-cutes than I am ever willing to muster. But “Hit Man”—and, more specifically, Glen Powell—managed to sucker-punch me with exactly the sort of charm that’s so casual, so slyly self-mocking, it dissolves resistance before you know what’s hit you. Powell proves what some of us have suspected since his first cocky, wrong-side-of-the-pillow grin: in movies, a little authentic charisma goes a lot further than a million dollars’ worth of high-concept script. He’s a one-man credibility machine, and “Hit Man” is almost criminally aware of it.
Powell’s Gary Johnson is the kind of guy you’re set up not to believe in: too mild, too decent, too apologetic for this business. A professor—a scholar, no less!—drafted as undercover muscle when the official tough guy (Austin Amelio, long-faced and twitching with bruised pride) gets sent to the procedural doghouse. In another film, this would be the moment you grab a magazine until the action starts. Here, the action is Gary’s brain, and Linklater’s joy is in watching how quickly his new recruit outsmarts both the game and our expectations. Disguising himself in roles for every client—an actor mugging his way through noir—Gary becomes “Ron,” a DIY hitman with more costumes than a one-man improv troupe and the wild-eyed freedom of someone who doesn’t know he can’t possibly pull this off. The ease is dazzling and contagious.
Into the act stumbles Madison (Adria Arjona, not just a pretty foil but—thank God—a character with bite, sorrow, and the sort of not-so-hidden steel you only discover when you try to tell her “it’s for your own good”). She wants her bad-news, abusive husband gone. Gary, masquerading as Ron, could say no and get away clean. Instead, he’s derailed by something that rarely survives in “based on a true story” thrillers: actual feeling. Their chemistry isn’t suspiciously convenient—it percolates, hesitates, careens into risk in the best, worst sorts of ways. When Gary and Madison orbit each other, you believe it: these are not the blandly mismatched pawns of second-rate studio seductions, but genuinely complicated people who might screw up everything they’re trying for. The banter is tart, the physical attraction prickles, and the best scenes crackle with awkward, hormone-laced nervousness—the funny, fidgety desire that’s usually left on the cutting room floor in grown-up Hollywood romances.
Supporting turns from Retta and Sanjay Rao add a gust of fresh irreverence, wisecracking and raising stakes like they’re only half-aware they’re in a quasi-screwball that’s elbowing you between the ribs. Austin Amelio’s Jasper, all hound-dog suspicion and bruised ego, nearly hijacks the narrative with his own petty desperation—his simmering jealousy never just convenient plot grease, but a real, sweaty, abrasive obstacle. “Hit Man” understands that even the people in the background are alive, kicking, and frequently ready to double-cross each other just for the satisfaction.
Credit Linklater for shooting the action with a silkiness that’s never artificial—New Orleans is more than backdrop here, it’s a half-lit accomplice, a city whose sticky, ambiguous magic is essential as any sidearm or punchline. Linklater has always been a storyteller who prefers his stories inlaid, digressive, conversational. Here, he keeps things buoyant, the shifting moods never jarring but whisper-light pirouettes—comedy into suspense, tenderness into peril, sometimes in the same scene. Instead of bloat, he gives us narrative sleight-of-hand: you’re never allowed to settle so completely you predict the next move, which means old tropes—secret identities, one-last-job setups—get revivified like new.
The script, co-penned by Linklater and Powell, never trusts mere jokes to carry it along. It’s witty—God, is it witty—but not ashamed to risk vulnerability. Every cheap shot’s balanced by a real emotion, a glimpse inside the wounded animal under the bravado. Gary’s rising panic as his lie teeters on the brink, Madison’s flickering hope as her life resets at the edge of legality—these aren’t just plot contrivances, they’re reasons to care. The dialogue dances; the writing refuses to let cleverness override sweetness or the thrill of uncertainty.
There’s a chutzpah here: it’s a film that recognizes how the lies we tell ourselves (and each other) have a way of curdling into our actual lives. “Hit Man” plays with identity as a magic trick, and what could be more modern? In a world obsessed with performance—in love, online, at work—is it any wonder that being “yourself” sometimes looks suspiciously like auditioning for another part? The film’s sharp edge is its understanding that this shallow world can still surprise you with depth; that a rom-com, handed to the right team, can smuggle in a scruple, a doubt, even a little moral vertigo.
If there’s criticism, it’s only that some of these twists may settle more comfortably in the funhouse mirror of genre than the sad, sticky mess of real feeling. But then again, how many movies do you leave wishing the world made a little more sense, and feeling—as I did here—unexpectedly lighter?
“Hit Man,” in the end, is a cunning, unashamedly entertaining jolt of pleasure and intelligence, with a hint of nerve. It flirts, it thrills, it even leaves you thinking about whether it’s ever possible to really know the face under someone’s mask—including your own. It’s the cinematic cousin of a clever masquerade: you know it’s a trick, the pleasure’s in discovering just how good the trickster really is.
If you want reassurance that the movies still have room for fresh delight—a cunning romance with a pulse—“Hit Man” hits the jackpot. I left smiling, and for a little while afterward, seeing the world as a friendlier, riskier, and much more seductive place. And isn’t that—once in a while—what movies are for?
