THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Sometimes, the damnedest things can bring out the best of us. And if you doubt that, look at Hit Man.
PLOT
The 2024 Netflix film follows psychology/philosopher Gary Johnson who takes part doing undercover work with the New Orleans Police Department when not teaching at University of New Orleans. Particularly, he’s involved in soliciting murder-for-hire confessions & payments from customers who intend to have people killed. When fellow cop Jasper gets suspended, Gary takes the helm in being fake hitman until he returns. He becomes a natural in the first try and would go on to research suspects and tailor personas for future operations long after Jasper returns from suspension. When adopting one persona he calls ‘Ron’, he uses it to try apprehending a discontent married woman named Madison who wants her husband Ray (Evan Holtzman) killed. Instead, his sympathy when hearing how controlling he is makes him attracted to her and lets her go, encouraging her to restart her life. He the continues to date her in the persona Ron and within their time together, he teaches her how to shoot a gun she owns. Things only take a turn for the worst when they encounter Ray at a nightclub. The latter’s jealousy makes him hostile to the point Gary has to hold him at gunpoint to leave him and Madison alone. As if it couldn’t get worse for Gary, Jasper would also see them together but he tells him at work he promises to not snitch on him. Days after this, Ray unknowingly hires Ron to have Madison killed. Not getting the chance to do research in advance, he improvises by having a back to back conversation. It works until he chooses to reveal himself when hearing his jealousy. That decision leads to him claiming he’ll do it himself. When Ron tells Madison of what happened, she reacts calmly as she doesn’t think he’ll actually do it. The following day, Gary would be in shock to discover Ray was found dead when being reported shot in the heart. When he meets Madison about it, she confesses of being responsible, prompting him to confess of who he really is, feeling that she’d only prefer Ron over Gary. Livid of being lied to, she kicks him out. At work, she is revealed to be high on the suspect list due to Ray’s life policy having increased before he died. Aware of Gary’s inner conflict, Jasper insists on soliciting her confession. Instead, he pretends to interrogate her and gives her acting cues to get her name in the clear. With his jealousy getting the best of him, Jasper confronts them both and demands Madison’s newly inherited money in exchange of keeping his mouth shut. That doesn’t happen as Madison poisons him and Gary finishes him by using a plastic bag to suffocate him, later staging his death as a suicide. The film ends in a time jump revealing the couple having started a new life, having gotten married and raising two kids together.
THOUGHTS
Richard Linklater is one of the finest names in the industry because each film he’s directed will be different from one another yet entertaining in either low or high standards. With such a bizarre story originating from a magazine article. With his gifted writing skills, he is able to maintain the intriguing atmosphere that becomes unexpectedly fun to witness. Seeing a perspective where a fake Hitman bites more than he can chew for taking advantage of his identity is definitely one in a million kind of plot and its overall interesting to follow. Now I had a fair amount of chuckles with Retta & Sanjay Rao being supportive coworkers through the roles of Claudette & Phil who encourage the lead character to come out of his shell. In the end of it though, Glen Powell really brought his best performance to date when playing Gary. Apart from seeing such hysterical costumes, he was a guy who wanted to bring back excitement in his life with his divorce slowing things down. But even his ex wife Alicia (Molly Bernard) encouraged her to make a change that would make a change that’ll make him happy and boy did it ever in the most unexpected way. Due to his studies, he is able to become these personas in a committed form where it’s fun for him yet he’s still getting the job done. The problem is that he takes it too far for a personal advantage. It’s one thing to use it for a fun day at work, but it’s an all time low lying just to get laid. Him falling for Madison created such a domino effect where you catch on the story’s theme to not make too much a drastic change when seeking rejuvenation because it’ll be hard to recover from the after effects. He goes out of her way to protect her from getting in trouble because meeting her helped him regain the comfort he was yearning and didn’t want to lose that if he were to turn her in. Adria Arjona indeed made a seductive figure out of Madison to the point where you couldn’t blame Gary to fall for her. But it doesn’t undo she was selfish from the start. Ray might have been a prick, but it could’ve been easier of a move if she actually went to the cops. She falls for Ron because he gives her the motivation to stand her ground and she stays with Gary out of gratitude for protecting her when needed most. They may have gotten to a point of content with their lives after this, but you wish things didn’t take such a shocking turn. In this particular narrative, it’s clear that the true threat was Jasper since Austin Amelia makes him very arrogant which easily triggers his jealousy towards Gary. With his own divorce, you can argue he’s Gary’s true polar opposite because it’s his anger that gets the best of him and unknowingly psuhes his own downfall. And the decision to be visibly selfish compared Gary & Madison, it is easy for us to not care when he dies no matter how wrong the couple are. You don’t have to like what they did, but you can’t help respecting their newfound content they were seeking. Now I’m serious when saying I enjoyed this film, but I still admit there’s some things that could’ve been done differently. I don’t think Gary needed to have dirty teeth or fake tattoos to nail the parts he’s going for. I respect the intent to not get recognized, but he’s gotta be aware when he’s overdoing it. And since he’s supposed to be portraying a criminal, he’s lucky Madison didn’t suspect him when seeing him play soccer with kids in the middle of a date. Hell, he’s lucky he didn’t get called out on how he shot the target at the shooting range. I mean she should’ve been curious how his shot was gonna look afar. And lastly, he should’ve bailed the second he saw Ray because at that point the truth is a better move than maintaining the lie. Ignore this however, then you’ll still enjoy the movie as much as I did. In short, Hit Man is one of 2024’s most satisfying films for taking the right directions to be an unpredictable crime comedy. If you have Netflix and like these kind of films, check this out.
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