Hit Man
“Who the fuck is Gary?”
Professional killer Gary Johnson breaks his very strict protocol in order to help a desperate woman who is trying to leave her abusive husband, and ends up falling in love with for her.
But the thing is… Gary isn’t really a hit man.
Gary is actually a very regular-ass, every day, boring middle-age white guy, nothing but a jorts-wearing single dude, with two cats, who likes feeding the birds, considers his ex-wife to be his best friend, and works as a psychology and philosophy professor at the University of New Orleans by day, and as a volunteer narc for the New Orleans police by night. This weird additional fact that he volunteers at the police department means he helps them place mics and cameras, and then monitors the recordings from the van during undercover sting operations that target people who are attempting to hire a professional killer.
Naturally, your immediate question is… who volunteers for something like that? And the answer is an untrustworthy narc, that’s who.
Anyway, when Jasper, the undercover cop who usually poses as the hit man during these sting operations, is suspended after he was recorded beating up some teenagers, for which he blames “cancel culture,” Gary has to take his place, and it turns out that Gary is very good at pretending to be a hit man.
Way too good, to be honest, so good that it seems like the film is insinuating that Gary isn’t just a fucking weirdo narc who volunteers to help the cops (ACAB includes Gary), but he might possibly also be a serial killer himself. He isn’t… well, not really, but for awhile there, it sure seems like that’s what’s going to happen in the film, which is basically a big part of why I didn’t like this movie.
But we’ll get to that…
Gary dives head first into the role of a fake hitman, portraying each one differently with each new case. Utilizing the insights he gathered by combing through the social media of the person who’s trying to hire the killer, he then molds each hitman into a specific character that he believes best fits what that particular person might imagine what a hitman is like. This puts the person more at ease, making them more likely to go through with purchasing his services, which gets the cops what they need to arrest the person. And while, yes, these people are trying to hire a professional killer, Gary’s whole cosplay schtick sounds a lot like entrapment to me, but, being that this is very loosely based on a true story, I guess the courts didn’t seem think so, and it’s not like the courts and the cops are totally corrupt and self-serving here in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, right?
Right?
Anyway… in the little montage that follows, among the myriad of hitmen that Gary plays, we see a loudmouth scumbag from Boston, a creepy red-headed British guy, a lumbering Russian, a swaggering 2A-loving patriot, a cold Brooks Brothers-type killer, a scarred John Wick-type, and the kind of Florida Man who looks like he probably owns multiple jet skis, but doesn’t pay his child support.
Enter the doe-eyed, dark-haired, and intoxicatingly lovely Madison (played by Adria Arjona, who played Bix in Andor). She meets with Gary’s latest persona, Ron, a guy who should probably just be called Sade, because he’s a smooth operator, smooooooth operator… Madison is also sex-on-wheels, but she’s so sad and so helpless, because her husband is super evil in some unspecificed way. His crimes are so vaguely referenced, in fact, I thought the twist was going to be that she was actually honey-potting Gary into killing her husband for her, all so that she could then reap the financial benefits, while he takes the fall, with the kicker being that she thought she was setting up a real killer, an actual bad guy, but he really wasn’t, he was just some regular schmoo, until the day he met her and decided that he would kill for the first time, all in order to save her from her husband, only for her to turn out to be the real bad guy, and her love for Gary was naught but a trap, a little game that ruined his life, much in the same way he has ruined the lives of so many others, and oh the irony, now he’s the one in jail.
Sure, this would’ve been pretty cliched and boring and obvious, but it still would’ve been better than the actual story.
So, anyway… Gary takes pity on Madison, because he’s twitterpated, and instead of reeling her in, he encourages her to just leave her husband, instead of killing him, and lets her go. This confuses the fuck out the cops he volunteers with, even making some of them angry, as they must now endure a terrible case of violentus interruptus, or what should probably be referred to as Thin Blue Line Balls.
The thing is, despite going their own ways, Madison is now super into professional murderer Ron, because he’s just that sexy and confident, and Gary, meanwhile, hasn’t been laid for possibly decades, so after that first meeting, both of them are now a hunk, a hunk of burning love for each other, or as Pam would say…
So soon enough, Madison and Gary (as Ron) are dating.
And while it’s true that everyone, including Gary’s coworkers, likes Ron way more than they do Gary, this is obviously an incredibly fucked up and selfish thing for Gary to do a person. However, this is something the film basically prefers not to address, treating it more like a totally awkward faux pas that is probably going to blow up in Gary’s face and totally ruin prom night. But to be fair, Madison is equally as fucked up too. Her character’s story is that she was married to a guy who was so bad, albeit in a vague and undetermined way, that she briefly considered killing him in order to get out of the marriage, and after leaving him, her post-marriage rebound is with a guy who she has no reason to believe isn’t a murderer for hire, so it’s not like she’s the queen of good decisions here either.
The strangest part of all this is, despite the fact that they’re kind of perfect for each other in this terrible, terrible way, the movie never seems to realize that it’s actually about two complete fucking sociopaths finding each other and falling in love. Wildly in lust, living dangerously, and humping like animals, this horrible duo’s relationship is obviously an out-of-control car, and it’s clear that somewhere ahead of them there’s a brick wall waiting.
At least, you’d think that was the whole point…
The first sign of trouble comes when Madison’s ex-husband angrily confronts them, and despite the fact that Gary pulls a gun on him, and the fact that Madison viciously encourages Gary to pull the trigger in that moment, the film doesn’t treat this as all that bad of a thing. I don’t know if this is just a reflection of the Texas culture that the star and director, the ones who wrote the script, hail from specifically, or if it’s just a reflection of American culture in general, or if it’s just another hallmark of the weirdly unegaged way the script has in its approach to the film’s events and its characaters, or if it’s just bad storytelling, but even though this moment is obviously a bad thing, and a sign of worse things to come, the film doesn’t seem to really notice, and seems to be more concerned with whether or not the pair’s illicit little love affair, not to mention Gary’s secret, will end up coming to light, should the cops get involved, which would ruin all their cute-couple-fun of dancing and ice cream.
The second bad sign comes when Madison’s ex then tries to hire a hitman to kill Madison, because of course he’s just as much a sociopath as Madison. Plus, I don’t know if hiring a hitman is really such a go-to option for people in real life, like the movie seems to depict, but apparently Gary’s work led to over 60 arrests, so maybe it is, who knows. Anyway, Madison’s ex unknowingly ends up trying to hire Gary, but since arresting this guy would blow up Gary’s secret life as Ron, not to mention his sexy fun time with Madison, Gary opts to instead deliberately spook the guy, blowing the sting, and send the ex running. Then, he immediately lets Madison know that her ex is tried to hire him to kill her. Soon enough Madison’s ex ends up dead, and surprise, surprise, Madison did it.
She admits to Gary that she did it. Gary’s cop buddies all think she did it. Their perfect little world is crumbling. So, with the cops closing in, Ron is revealed to be Gary, and he and Madison have their classic rom-com 2/3rds of the way through the film break-up, but come back together when Gary helps her wiggle out from under the undercover sting that is targeting her, and all without tipping off the cops. This leads to them reconciling, but right when they think they’re at the finish line, Jasper reveals to them that he knows everything, and is going to blackmail them.
So they poison him, and then put a plastic bag over his head, and let him slowly suffocate. Relieved to finally be out of the woods, and looking forward to a bright and happy future together, our heroes make up with some sloppy wet kisses, and get ready to head on down to Pound Town right there on the living room couch, while Jasper slowly dies on the carpet behind them.
This is a really weird film.
It honestly seems to believe that it’s a fun, cute, and sexy adult thriller rom-com, and it’s such an odd feeling watching it seemingly not know that it’s tale of two sociopaths in love. Also, annoyingly, it’s one of those very chastely-sexy adult thrillers, where it often features its two attractive leads naked, but only ever showing a little bit of side boob, or maybe some shapely hip, or the gently curving slope of a buttocks, while they performatively dry-hump.
Written and directed by Richard Linklater, a darling of the film head scene, Hit Man was also co-written by Glenn Powell, who also stars in the movie. At the very least he didn’t direct himself, but an actor writing his own showcase is almost always a big red flag, and this film is no exception. Honestly, the farther I get from this film, the less I like it. And while I want to say that I don’t understand why people like this film—and they really do seem to like it a lot—I can’t. I do understand why they like it.
Glen Powell was in Top Gun: Maverick, an entertaining but ridiculous movie. He also starred in the recent rom-com Anyone But You with Sydney Sweeney, which I haven’t seen yet, but seemed to be at least moderately successful.
And much like Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell is super hot shit right now. They’re both having a moment, and the hoi polloi really seem to be into them both, and… I don’t get it. I don’t have anything against either of them, not really. They’re both attractive and charming. They’re both talented in their way, but… no big deal, y’know? I mean, on a basic bitch starbucks latte level, I can see why people are into them, sure, they’re both attractive, but I don’t see anything else. Powell is a very generic “leading man” type. Sydney is the same, although she is a little dead-eyed, or maybe it’s that she has heavy eye lids? I don’t know, there’s something off-putting in the eyes for me. Whatever. My point is, they’re both perfectly servicable middle-of-the-road leading actors, but to me at least, they’re nothing to write home about. Admittedly, maybe it’s just that I’m not into the whole real life Ken and Barbie white people ideal, right? Maybe that’s it, and that’s on me, but whatever it is, I just don’t see what the big deal is with these two.
They’re both very… standard issue.
But still, I’m obviously in the minority here. Like Sydney Sweeney, the people love Glen Powell, and Hit Man is Powell’s showcase, his big Actor’s Sandbox film. It’s all about showing off his charm and charisma, but it’s too enamored with its gimmick of Glen dressing up as all the various hitmen to bother thinking about the intricacies of its plot, and on top of that, like I said, it outright ignores, or even worse, is completely unaware of the fact that the film’s heroes are fucking monsters.
In short, this is a poorly made movie, people.
Plus, the fact that Glen Powel looks like Glen Powell, and Linklater tries to hide this behind a pair of glasses, a shitty haircut, and a pair of jorts, trying to “She’s All That” a guy who looks like he was born already a three year Prom King is just laughable, and probably the part of the film that most rings false to me.
Also…
At one point, the movie claims that hit men don’t actually exist, and it says this because that’s what cops claim. But since cops are mostly angry half wits, wannabe action stars with inferiority complexes, and outright bigots, who neither deter, stop, prevent, nor solve the majority of crimes, and mostly just spend their time protecting the interests of moneyed white people, and otherwise just harass and murder people of color and from fringe communities, when they aren’t sitting in their cars, scrolling through their phones, or beating their wives—which is the inevitable end result when your hiring pool is made up almost exclusively of the dumbest kids you went to high school with, and the most ate-up motherfuckers you served with, I’d take that with a grain of salt. I’d be more willing to bet that the truth is, when it comes to whether or not hitmen exist, is that it’s far more likely that cops are simply incapable of realizing when a death is the result of a professional hit, let alone then being capable of finding the responsible parties, arresting them, and sending them to jail.
And whether or not any of that is true, the problem here is the assumption of right and truth on the side of the police, and all coming from the mouth of a characater who volunteers with them. It’s a weird and untrustworthy stance that is treated as gospel, and makes me feel like, even if we are only getting a highly fictionalized version of a small part of a real person’s life, even if this is basically just a fictional story, that we’re still not getting a full or true story.
And besides, who needs that kind of blatant Copaganda?
Then, there’s a late scene in the film where Gary’s class has a discussion about the benefits of deliberate killings within a society, and how those kinds of killings can serve a dual purpose of protecting social coherence and norms, while also eliminating abusive and uncooperative persons from the gene pool, which is basically the kind of privileged asshole “law and order” bootlicker bullshit that the guys who take selfies of themselves sitting in their vehicles and wearing ugly sunglasses, while advocating online for running over protestors, say. And yet, the film presents this as a reasonable and well-thought-out, and very logial position, instead of the toxic nonsense common in libertarian scumbags, especially ones from Texas.
Even worst than that, it’s obvious from where it appears in the film, that the only reason this scene appears at all is to first justify Madison’s killing of her husband, so she can be a good guy instead of a murderer, and then to also justify the film’s super fucked-up “we’re happily making out over a man who is helplessly choking to death, slowly dying by our hand, but it’s cool, because we’re nice” ending.
And as the film ultimately rewards our heroes, its denouement then treats Jasper’s murder as a good thing, a well deserved death of “a bad apple” kind of thing, and that with him gone, not only are our heroes now safe to hump wildly and play house, but the city itself is safe, and all thanks to a pair of horny and homicidal sociopaths, who are now even bigger heroes than they were before, because they understand that sometimes, some people just need killing… for the greater good.
The film never even thinks about addressing the fact that Gary and the other cops have known exactly who Jasper was all along, and yet not only tolerated it, but never did anything about it. And when Jasper is suspended because a citizen filmed him hospitalizing teenagers, it’s treated as a “here we go again” eye roll type of thing, and Gary and the other cops breathe a sigh of relief that the system removed that problem for them. The film never seems to realize that this means that they’re all bad cops. All of them. Just like all of the “back the blue” fascists, this film conveniently forgets that the whole phrase is “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,” which means that, when you sit silently by and you allow this kind of shit to go on, you’re just as much of a piece of shit.
Instead, this film not only sees no issue with Jasper’s coworkers doing nothing, it has them treat his activities with the same level of put-upon head-shaking disdain as they might reserve for, say… a coworker who farts repeatedly whenever they’re all working inside the van on a hot summer day. Like it’s a relief to be free of that an annoyance, not a terrible thing that should’ve been stopped long ago. Of course, the way the film just brushes all of this shit off makes sense when you take into account the way it treats its terrible main characaters.
It’s stunning, really.
I don’t understand how this film could be released like this. It’s shocking to me that not only would the filmmakers, the producers, the editors, or literally anyone who saw this film before its release, could have missed these issues. It’s even more shocking to me that so many have seen it since, and are singing its praises so effusively. This kind of shit forces me to admit that it’s far more likely that they all these people did see its many issues, and much like the myriad injustices that currently plague our society and our world… they just don’t care, simply because they don’t really consider any of it to be wrong.
Even worse, and this is more likely, these people do know it’s wrong, but much like Gary and the other cops on the team when it comes to Jasper’s actions, they’re just willing to look the other way rather than risk upsetting the larger group. And I say this is more likely, because it’s clear that the film does understand that Madison and Gary killing people is a bad thing. If it didn’t, then it wouldn’t have worked it’s ass off so hard to provide an excuse for it.
In a nutshell, Hit Man is like White America: The Movie. “It’s okay if I do it!” The story of a pair of people’s funny little sociopathic foibles, and the murder-meet-cute that brings their hearts together.
A weirdly and seemingly blissfully oblivious piece of sociopathic fascist Copaganda, nothing but the unbridled power fantasy of the middle aged white guy who dreams of the privilege of taking off his glasses Clark Kent-style and revealing that he was a sexy ass James Bond/Punisher all along, as well as an “adult drama” that is sexy in the most puritanically boring ways possible, Hit Man is truly a product of America and the Hollywood Studio System, and what I would call a “sleight of hand” kind of film.
What I mean by that is, while Glen Powell and Adria Arjona dazzle you with their sexy smiles, their sexy bodies, and their sexy charisma, it’s only afterwards that you might realize that it was all done to distract you from how half-baked and false, and ultimately how empty the film is, both it its story, and in its soul.
Thumbs down with an extended fart noise.