‘Hit Man’ review: Richard Linklater’s screwball assassin comedy is serious fun

Richard Linklater knows how to craft an offbeat indie. He practically invented them, if you think about his 1990 debut Slacker, high-school yarn Dazed And Confused, the Before trilogy or the sublime shot-incrementally-over-a-dozen-years Boyhood. But just occasionally, he’s slam-dunked a commercial hit too, notably 2003’s School Of Rock, with Jack Black as the music-loving substitute teacher. Now he’s back with Hit Man, another uproarious crowd-pleaser that gives a welcome starring turn to Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell.

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Inspired (loosely) by a true story, one that stems from a 2001 article in Texas Monthly, Hit Man casts Powell as Gary Johnson, a part-time college teacher, lecturing in psychology. He also moonlights for the New Orleans Police Department, helping coordinate the tech as he records sting operations. Then he hits the motherlode, when he’s asked to go undercover, posing as a contract killer. The idea is to elicit confessions from the dopes that decide they want to hire out a hit man to take out an unfaithful lover or spouse.

Soon, Gary gets a taste for this lifestyle – adopting disguises and accents as he takes down these foolhardy folk. Then he meets Madison (Adria Arjona), and emotions get the better of him. She wants to hire ‘Ron’, as Gary calls himself on this occasion, to eliminate her awful, abusive husband. But all too aware that he’s leading her towards some serious jail time, Gary convinces her otherwise, something that sets alarm bells ringing among his colleagues who are listening into their interactions.

As chemistry fizzes between Gary and Madison, who are soon seeing each other, suspicions are raised, particularly by Jasper (Austin Amelio), the greasy, bitter cop who Gary replaced as the go-to undercover guy. And so Linklater delicately, deliciously, enters into sexy screwball comedy territory, crafting a criminal lovers tale that boasts scenes every bit as steamy as George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez squeezing in the car boot in 1998’s Out Of Sight.

Of course, the crazier it gets, the further away from real-life events Hit Man goes, but that ceases to matter, as by this point you’re wrapped up in the snowballing story. Intriguingly, the screenplay is credited to Linklater and Powell, whose sensibilities dovetail perfectly here. Likewise, the original Texas Monthly article comes from Skip Hollandsworth, who also provided the source material for Linklater’s 2011 dark comedy Bernie, that saw Jack Black as a caretaker-cum-killer.

Arjona, who previously featured in season two of True Detective, has a real casual grace about her, while Powell offers a deft turn (or turns, given his various guises) as a man who gets in way over his head. While this is a Netflix vehicle, meaning you’re likely to watch it at home when it drops in early June, it’s worth seeking out at the cinema on its limited theatrical release – for this is a film to be enjoyed with a big audience. Linklater is a master of pacing and he times this story to perfection; you’ll be aching with laughter by the end.