REVIEW: Hit Man (2024)

Movie Reviews

“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.” –imdb.com

Hit Man is a highly enjoyable and somewhat charming movie. Richard Linklater delivers an easily accessible viewing experience that most audiences should find favorable. This would be a great date-night movie where both men and women would most definitely enjoy it and not just have to say they did.

Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a psychology and philosophy professor at The University of New Orleans, as well as a tech nerd who also works part-time for the New Orleans Police Department who, out of nowhere and with no experience, has to become an undercover hit man for hire. He’s not actually a cop; he mainly installs hidden cameras and hidden mics and obtains undercover recordings of murder-for-hire suspects.

Gary comes off as a nerdy loner who has more cats than friends, which, in hindsight, is a little unbelievable because of how easily he’s able to turn into different characters as an undercover hit man, characters that show natural charisma with an attractive face to match. How did this guy go all this time and not discover this about himself? Other than that and a three-second scene where Ron (his most charming undercover character) is tossing a football with little kids, everything is believable. Nothing else in this movie made me cringe or think. “What were they thinking?”

Considering this isn’t The Godfather, I thought the acting in Hit Man was excellent. Glen Powell’s ability to flow in and out of multiple characters in a flash and still come off as believable is impressive. Not at one point did I think he sucked or wasn’t nailing it in every scene. Glen Powell was also great in Top Gun: Maverick, where he totally nailed the cocky som’bitch character. After seeing this, I’m convinced that Powell is on his way to becoming a huge movie star, which used to be a normal thing but, unfortunately, has gone away since celebrities started voicing their opinions on cultural/political topics and dividing their fan bases.

Adria Arjona was a great choice for her role and did a great job. This movie wasn’t asking for a grand inquisition, and the two main actors delivered perfectly. Her acting wasn’t over the top, and it wasn’t lacking, either. I also liked her in True Detective Season 2.

Hit Man did not feel like a romantic comedy to me. Yeah, it’s in there, but in a much more enjoyable way than I’d expect when a movie is labeled as a romantic comedy to be. If more romantic comedies were made like this, I’d probably watch more of them without the excessive cringing I usually experience. It’s almost difficult to label this movie with one genre. I think it’s mainly a comedy, with a side dish of romance, a side of suspense/mystery, and crime procedure as a dessert.

There are a few scenes of Gary teaching his students, and I feel like these scenes are a type of metaphorical foreshadowing and narration of the scenes to follow. These teaching scenes are kind of like prologues before an act, setting the themes and philosophy of the following act, which I find to be an intellectual attempt at portraying the deeper underlying and possibly unknown motivations of the main characters.

There’s no messaging that I can tell. There are no weak men who can’t accomplish anything, in contrast to super strong female characters. There’s no LGB stuff. There are no racial or inclusivity themes. It’s just a regular movie, which is refreshing. It has montages that aren’t overboard, and I love montages, especially when they end with, or at least include, at some point, a jumping high-five.

Hit Man is not a movie that will be a cult classic, but it’s definitely re-watchable. It wasn’t a huge tent pole movie; it was simply entertaining. If I paid to see it in the theater, I would not have left upset or felt that I just wasted money. Now, compared to the majority of movies that have come out recently, yeah, this one is a banger!