150 Word Review: 'Hit Man' (2024)
Kill 'em with kindness
Oscar-nominated indie icon Richard Linklater has range. His decades-long career features subversive hangout comedies (Dazed & Confused,) Jack Black-powered crowd pleasers (School of Rock,) and experimental time travel melodramas (Boyhood.) He's an easygoing, intensely cerebral filmmaker who can speak Hollywood's language: hits.
And that's what he has in Hit Man, a sexy new dark comedy starring Glen Powell as a lonely philosophy professor moonlighting as an undercover contract killer for the cops.
Powell is a conventionally handsome leading man delivering an unconventional performance as a goober who dons goofy disguises that fool no one except for scorned lovers. Then, one day, Powell's wig-wearing crimefighter falls in love with an unhappily married would-be murderer, played by charming Adira Arjona, while on the job. Powell and Arjona are perfectly paired: they're both very beautiful oddballs. It’s a winning combination. Hit Man snaps; it is refreshingly macabre and effortlessly smart. Linklater is having fun.
My new book, Theatre Kids, hits bookstores in 4 days—June 18th. Pre-order now.
It’s a funny/sad memoir about lovable (and unlovable) losers making art that no one will see.
Here’s a photo of me holding up a hardcover copy of the book, looking “happy,”—or at least, that’s the word my therapist uses.
Links To More Linklater: ‘Everybody Wants Some!!” (2016)
New 150 Word Review: ‘Splice’ (2009)
