Film / Hit Man (2023)

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Hit Man is a 2023 romantic black comedy film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Glen Powell. The film stars Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, and Retta.

Gary Johnson (Powell) is a mild-mannered professor of philosophy and psychology who is unwillingly recruited by the police to moonlight as a fake assassin-for-hire in sting operations when ill-tempered undercover police officer Jasper (Amelio) is suspended for brutality.

Things become complicated when he takes on the role of 'Ron': a smooth and confident hitman who is hired by discontented wife Madison (Arjona) to take out her abusive husband.

The film premiered at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and was released on Netflix on June 7, 2024.

Previews: Teaser, Trailer

Hit Man includes examples of the following:

• Advertising by Association: The trailer boasts Linklater as the director behind Dazed and Confused and School of Rock.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played With and to some extent both deconstructed and reconstructed. Maddy falls for the "Ron" persona under the belief he's a professional hitman and clearly finds him showing his killer side off to be a turn-on, but she's also an abuse survivor whose previous partner trapped her in a controlling and abusive marriage, so it's clear that this attraction to dangerous men is self-destructive and unhealthy. However, it's also apparent that the reason the "Ron" persona is attractive isn't due to him being bad, but that as Ron, Gary is more assertive, confident, and charismatic, all of which make him more attractive, not just to Madison but also both his colleagues with the police and his students. Notably, it's actually Gary playing Ron as a Punch-Clock Villain who's really a Nice Guy underneath that Maddy finds attractive about him, rather than him simply being a scary hitman.
• All There in the Manual: The promotional material names some of Gary's unnamed fake hitman identities such as right-wing justice vigilante "Tanner", vaguely European mobster "Nico", Patrick Bateman-esque Professional Killer "X".
• Amicable Exes: Gary and his ex wife Alicia. Despite divorcing, the two of them are still close and hang out regularly, with Gary outright describing her as his best friend and Alicia encouraging him to find someone new to be with like she has.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Jasper is a pain in the neck who often criticises Gary's methods even though Gary is a far more successful fake hitman than Jasper ever was, and Jasper was suspended for Police Brutality. Ultimately Jasper becomes the only person Gary actually kills, when Madison drugs him unconscious and Gary decides to finish him off by suffocation. While Madison is worried, Gary assures her that Jasper was so disliked by his colleagues that they're just gonna be glad to be rid of him and won't investigate his death too closely.
  • Similarly, no one is going to shed a tear for Ray, Madison's abusive husband, who tried to pay someone to kill her before she got him first.
• Babies Ever After: At the end of the movie, Gary and Madison have two children.
• Based on a True Story: The trailer claims the film is "inspired by the true story of a fake hitman", and the opening titles say it's a "somewhat true story", though the credits admit they "made up" the "committing murder" part. The story in question was a piece by journalist Skip Hollingsworth (who is acknowledged in the credits); Gary Johnson was a real guy who did work as a fake hitman for the police. In fact, the incident where he chose to show mercy to a female potential client, and let her off the hook, happened; director Linklater explained that the hook for the movie was imagining what might have followed if she had called him back.
• Becoming the Mask: Downplayed. The film hints at several points that this might happen to Gary, but in the end he only kills one person (who kind of had it coming). He does, however, become more confident and assertive in his daily life through pretending to be Ron, which seems to stick even after he discards the persona. The idea is emphasised by scenes of Gary lecturing his students and saying that he believes that people can construct their own personas — an idea he gets from a chat with his ex-wife.
• Blackmail Backfire: When Jasper realizes that Madison killed Ray and Gary helped her solidify her innocence, he demands a large chunk of Ray's life insurance payout or he'll spill the beans. In a panic, Madison drugs him, then Gary fully commits by tying a plastic bag over his head to suffocate him and comes up with a plan to pass the death off as a suicide.
• Character Development: In the beginning of the film, Gary is a loner who bores his students and anyone who is forced to listen to him yammer on about birds. Through the course of the film, his "Ron" personality gets dialed up, and his old personality gets dialed back. He starts wearing sexier clothing and becomes more interesting. By the end of the film, his students are captivated by his lectures and laughing at his philosophy jokes.
• Closest Thing We Got: Gary originally gets called on to act as a fake hitman because the usual officer in this role, Jasper, has just been suspended and Gary is the only available candidate at short notice.
• Comically Small Bribe: Gary comments on the fact that most of his clients seem entirely comfortable with the existence of hitmen who will kill people for at times laughably small amounts of money.
• Consummate Liar: Gary's acting ability fits this, but it truly stands out by the end of the movie when he is (mostly) able to navigate some almost impossible scenarios regarding his involvement with Madison once she becomes a primary murder suspect without breaking much of a sweat.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • When Madison and "Ron" finally decide to go out on a date instead of just meeting at her house, they run into Madison's ex-husband Ray outside of a club and Jasper at a fast food place, both on the same night. Maddy lampshades it, and Gary later questions whether the first encounter was a coincidence or something Maddy set up (the film never provides an answer).
  • When Ray decides to have Maddy killed he ends up resorting to Gary, in one of his aliases.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Maddy's ex-husband, Ray, who she and Gary encounter outside a club and tries to start a fight with Gary, before Gary pulls a gun on him and Ray lets them get away. He later attempts to put a hit on her, even requesting that the hitman let her know that it's from her "loving husband".
• Dirty Cop: Jasper is perfectly willing to let Madison get away with murdering Ray if she pays him off with the money she got from Ray's life insurance policy, and hints at past activities that were doubtless over the line.
• Distant Finale: The movie's epilogue jumps ahead several years, as evidenced by Gary and Madison's eldest daughter being around 5 or 6 years old at least.
• Domestic Abuse: Maddy wants to kill her husband because of his abusive, controlling behavior. From what we see of him, especially when he tries to place a hit on her, she's not lying.
• Embarrassing First Name: When she learns the truth, Madison is nearly as disdainful that her boyfriend's real name is "Gary" as she is of the rest of his lies.
• Exact Words: Part of Gary's skill is very precise wording, even when he's improvising in tricky situations. He has to get his clients on record explicitly commissioning a murder in order to make a legal case, but if he ever actually encourages them to do so, the case will be thrown out on the grounds of entrapment.
• Femme Fatale: Played With. Madison is set up to be a classic example in the vein of Phyllis Dietrichson; she's an attractive, sexually-liberated woman claiming to be trapped in a bad marriage, who kicks off the plot by asking the protagonist to kill her husband, starts a romance with him, and demonstrates a willingness to lie and kill to get what she wants, ultimately resulting in the deaths of two people. However, the film never decisively answers what her motivations are, both of the men killed are assholes, she doesn't pose any danger to Gary, and in the end, the two live Happily Ever After.
• Finding the Bug: More like revealing the bug. When the police send Gary to interrogate Madison about Ray's life insurance while wearing a wire, he uses text on his phone screen to silently warn her that the police are listening. Even as he pretends with his vocal performance that he's trying to get a confession out of her, he uses text prompts and body language to coach her through an intense "argument" where she convincingly denies any wrongdoing.
• Fingore: One of Gary's fake identities claims that he disposes of his victims' fingerprints by cutting the fingers off and tossing them out the car window as he drives to a body disposal site.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the start of the film, Gary is shown lecturing his students about the philosophical idea that it is necessary to live dangerously and seize chances — a principle that he ultimately embodies in the film's plot. His other lectures also foreshadow or discuss the themes of the film, such as the nature of identity and the morality of killing.
  • For one of Gary's clients, it's mentioned that police only have an authorization for a wiretap, but no video. When Madison is suspected of killing Ray, this situation comes up again, which Gary uses to write messages on his phone screen so they can communicate without the cops knowing.
  • During one of the scenes showing the trials of Gary's clients, the defense attorney argues that the type of killing on trial is akin to a Crime of Passion and far less dangerous to society than a psychopath or a career criminal, and unlikely to reoffend. By the end of the movie both Madison and Gary have committed murders of this type and are implied to have gone on to live happy, honest lives.
• Genre Mashup: The film's premise suggests a Film Noir. Madison wants to be a Femme Fatale, and the story seems to be based on Hitchcockian Thriller tropes like the "wrong man" Mistaken Identity plot, but it has the tone and plot structure of a Romantic Comedy.
• Greek Chorus: Gary's students commentate on his always plot-relevant lectures and gradually receive him more warmly as he becomes more confident.
• Happily Married: At the end of the movie, Gary and Madison are shown living contentedly as a professional couple with two kids and a nice house.
• Hitman with a Heart: Gary ends up pretending to be one during his romance with Madison, due to his true personality leaking out from underneath his Professional Killer facade.
• Homage: One of Gary's personas is based on Christian Bale's portrayal of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Another, a prim, androgynous Soft-Spoken Sadist with a British accent, appears to be inspired by Tilda Swinton.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Madison is attracted to "Ron" in part because he is (seemingly) capable of killing people. When Gary proves he really is capable of murder, she immediately comes on to him.
• Karma Houdini:
  • The woman who tries to pay Gary with a motorboat is forgiven by her husband and acquitted by the jury.
  • The Troubled Teen who attempted to hire Gary to kill his mother gets off with monitored parole because he's a minor, much to Gary's annoyance.
  • Both Gary and Madison literally get away with murder. In truth, both Ray and Jasper were Asshole Victims, and they show no proclivity for future violence.
• Lady in Red: Crossing over with Red Is Violent, Madison is wearing a red dress when Gary confronts her about killing Ray and she drugs Jasper.
• Let Off by the Detective: Gary helps Madison get away with killing Ray, even helping her kill Jasper to tie off the only loose end.
• Liar Revealed: Gary reveals his identity to Madison in a panic once he learns his hit man persona may have led her to actually kill someone. She kicks him out of the house, but his successful efforts to cover for her crime ultimately wins her back.
• Lint Value: Most of the people who hire Gary pay him no more than four figures. Gary notes it speaks to people's wishful thinking that they believe professional hit men exist who would risk the death penalty for such a small amount of money, but he accepts whatever they're willing to pay. A number of people are so short on cash that they offer him other trifling possessions: one woman who wants her husband gone offers a motorboat that's optimistically worth $6,000, while a teenage boy trying to put a hit on his mother makes a pathetic offering of small bills, pocket change, and five PlayStation 5 games.
• Master Actor: Gary may have been pressed into duty on short notice, but he proves to be an absolute natural at acting: he thinks on his feet, thoroughly embodies his characters, masters a variety of accents, and maintains one ruse for months. He even creates his own roles, assessing his clients and deciding what they expect of a hitman.
• Master of Disguise: Gary takes his side hustle of being a fake hit man very seriously, using elaborate wigs, costumes, makeup, fake teeth, contact lenses, fake tattoos, and more to embody his personas.
• Ms. Fanservice: Madison is seen in a ton of sexy outfits.
• Perilous Marriage Proposal: Gary proposes to Madison while Jasper lies dying on the floor. He uses wedding terminology but it's still more of a proposal.
• The Power of Acting: Despite no formal training (he confesses to having been too shy to sign up for the high school play), Gary is a remarkably capable actor capable of juggling multiple personas that he creates himself, and is able to use this ability to send multiple wannabe killers to prison. Madison turns out to be pretty damn good at it, too, with her and Gary essentially coaching each other into giving great performances when he is sent in to try to solicit a confession for Ray's murder.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Invoked and discussed. Ray tells Gary that he wants Madison to hear him say, "This is from your loving husband" before he kills her.
• Professional Killer: Thoroughly discussed, invoked, and deconstructed. As Gary points out in the voiceover, hit men don't really exist — or at least, can't be hired by the average person — leading him to lean into the genre trappings in order to cater to his clients/marks.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Gary considers the lawyers of the people he's arresting this and holds no grudge against them; they might make personal attacks against him, but ultimately, it is their job to try and get a Not Guilty verdict for their client.
• Psycho for Hire: Some of the assassins Gary plays are very enthusiastic about their work.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: One of Gary's clients is an example, and Gary pretends to be one as well when talking to him, describing his job as "vigilante justice".
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Invoked, a couple of Gary's personas have muddled, vaguely European-sounding accents because that's what his targets expect a hitman to sound like.
• Sexy Whatever Outfit: One time shortly after Gary and Maddy start dating, Maddy wears a sexy flight attendant outfit before they have sex.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Gary's students think that he's a loser at the beginning of the film. Once he dials up his "Ron" persona in everyday life, he starts dressing more stylishly, and his female students start finding him attractive.
• Shout-Out: When Gary is explaining in a voiceover that people who want to hire a Professional Killer think they exist because of pop culture, we see a montage of movies with hitmen, including This Gun for Hire, Dial M for Murder, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, A Colt is My Passport, Branded to Kill, The Mechanic (1972), and In Bruges, as well as a clip from the show Barry.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Ultimately, while Maddy is definitely turned on by "Ron's" supposed day job and its dangers, the main reason she even pursues him is after seeing him being a Nice Guy despite what he supposedly does, and much of Ron's sex appeal is more due to the charisma Gary plays him with rather than what he does. While she is deeply turned on by seeing that he really is capable of murder when pushed, they're able to build a happy marriage with kids largely due to Gary ultimately proving to be a nice and stable husband who appears to still be in love with her years later.
• Spicy Latina: Madison is a young Latina woman who responds to being in an abusive and controlling relationship by hiring a hitman to kill him.
• Spy Speak: Gary makes up a Trust Password between one of his fake identities and would-be clients for a diner meeting where the latter would ask "How's the pie?" and the former eating it would respond "All pie is good pie" to make the encounter more legit and lure the mark into a false sense of security. He would later use the same sign/countersign for his first meeting with Maddy as "Ron".
• Too Dumb to Live: Yes, Jasper, just go ahead and accept those drinks, which you did not watch being retrieved or opened, from the person you finished threatening mere moments ago and who you know is capable of murder. His carelessness about treating Maddy as a threat leads directly to his death—justified, as he's a bigot who no doubt doesn't take a Latina seriously as a threat.
• Troubled Teen: One of Gary's would-be clients is an obnoxious teenager, a bit of an emo type, who wants his own mother murdered. Yes, he definitely wants to be an orphan. Gary is mildly annoyed that he only gets monitored parole for the offence.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Gary's cats are not shown past a point, and he has dogs at the end.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Gary notes that most of the people who want to hire a Professional Killer base all of their assumptions on the 50 years of books, TV shows, and movies that have depicted them without realizing that it's all a pop culture fantasy.