HIT MAN
US, 2023, 115 minutes, Colour.
Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, Retta, Sanjay Rao, Molly Bernard, Evan Holtzman.
Directed by Richard Linklater.
With a direct title like Hit Man, we know what to expect. And, the expected happens, but, of course, with some differences.
This is a film by prolific filmmaker for more than 30 years, Richard Linklater, based in Austin, Texas usually, though this time in New Orleans. Linklater was able to explore relationships with his Before Trilogy, trace the development of a child to adolescence over 12 years in Childhood, and is always able to blend comedy with seriousness.
This time, in collaboration with his star, Glen Powell (emerging into prominence with Top Gun Maverick, Anything But You, Twisters), he has gone for offbeat comedy.
Powell is playing a character based on a real-life person (though Linklater emphasises that they have added the murders which didn’t happen in real life!). Gary teaches at the University, an academic who enjoys his work. However, he is also employed by the local police with their work in profiling as well as entrapment of a range of citizens who are searching to employ a hitman. He is open to change his persona, quite inventively, and an enjoyable collage of characters, men and women, old and young, rich and poor, make rendezvous meetings to hire him. Then the collage of them all being arrested, astounded, in prison.
But, this kind of story needs a femme fatale. She arrives in the form of Andrea Arjona, wanting to get rid of her obnoxious husband. Gary is in the character of Ron, tough, reliable hitman, but, he falls for her. Fans of crime writers may be on the alert, especially for film buffs, and though the work of James M.Cain and Raymond Chandler. Chandler adapted Cain’s novel, Double Indemnity, 1944, an archetypal story of the victim of the femme fatale.
This is all interestingly and entertainingly played out, scenes with the aggressive and jealous husband, a colleague of Gary who is not above some blackmail, some very pleasant police officers with integrity, and, then the death of the husband. Whodunnit?
Because of the complications when the wife he is the news of her husband’s death, when Gary has to unmask his hitman facade, will it be a happy ending?
That doesn’t happen in this kind of thing – but, spoiler alert, some unanticipated, surprising happy ever after!
- The title? Expectations?
- The New Orleans setting? Homes, police precincts, college? Clubs, the streets? The musical score?
- The screenplay based on actual characters and events – but the screenplay adding the killings? Stability of the plot, the professor, schools in undercover work, consequences?
- Gary, in class, the students, themes and studies? Is private life? His connection with the police? The set-ups, his skill in reading characters, the arrests?
- The squad, setting up criminals, the variety of settings, the variety of characters, the collage of interviews, Gary and the various characters, the discussions, the entrapment? The consequences?
- The squad, there were, confidence in Gary? Jasper, blowing his cover? Calling in Gary, setting up the character of Ron? Diffidence, his success, the performances, the affirmation? Jasper and his surliness?
- The situation with Madison, his character, Ron, the meeting, listening to her, falling for her, her story? Giving her advice? The relationship? His cover? Do with her husband, the issue of divorce, his manic aggression, hatred for Madison?
- The irony of his contacting Gary for a killer against Madison? The revelation? Jasper and his encounter, something of the situation, action, blackmail?
- Madison falling in love with Ron, reaction to his being Gary? The death of her husband, Gary and his suspicions? The squad, the pressure on Gary to trap Madison? His going to the house, his double game, indicating answers for her, her getting away?
- The epilogue, their being together, getting away with murder?
- The blend of the serious and comic?
