Hit Man Stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona and is Directed by Richard Linklater
Review: I’ll give the movie another shot in the coming days – perhaps the pacing and tone will work better for me on rewatch – but I leave Richard Linklater’s Hit Man surprisingly cold. Glen Powell feels miscast in a movie struggling to stay afloat.
Hit Man Movie Review
Despite my love for nearly all things Richard Linklater and Glen Powell, I just couldn’t bring myself to fall for their newest release on Netflix – Hit Man, which tries its hardest to hide its superstar lead behind a thick layer of nerdy, undesirable heft that I saw right through from beginning to end.
And it’s a shame, really, because the reliability of Linklater and Powell (both together and separately) has been outstanding since the two teamed up nearly a decade ago for Everybody Wants Some!! – my personal favorite of Richard Linklater’s works, and one of my favorite movies of the 2010s. They seem to understand the talents of one another quite well, which makes Hit Man such a strange detour that amounts to the same level of harmless fun emotional emptiness as some of his weaker movies like School of Rock and Bernie.
Which is to say that just because some of his great movies (Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly) are at times plotless, they’re always untying an aspect of modern life. Hit Man doesn’t manage to do any of this, really, and instead relies on the star power of its leads that feels clunky at best.
And, unfortunately, Glen Powell may be Exhibit A for this, as his everyday demeanor, floppy haircut, and other attempts to downplay his charisma just don’t work, and awkwardly play against the glamour that he’s perfected in nearly every role before this. It just doesn’t work. And it becomes worse when paired with Adria Arjona (Morbius, Triple Frontier), who runs laps around him in Hit Man and becomes the real star of the movie.
I’m glad Hit Man has become a hit on Netflix because (regardless of my feelings on the film), I want Richard Linklater and Glen Powell to continue making movies together. They really go for it every time they team up, and although this one didn’t really land for me, I’ll tune in each and every time they have a new movie out.
And perhaps this is more of an indictment on how I saw the film – at home rather than with a crowd in the theater. I didn’t find Hit Man particularly funny or quirky, and the script lacked the bite or idiosyncrasies that many of Linklater’s best movies have. It felt like they were going through the motions, churning out an easily marketable romp in their sleep.
I’ll give the movie another shot in the coming days – perhaps the pacing and tone will work better for me on rewatch – but I leave Hit Man surprisingly cold towards the film. One of the more disappointing releases I’ve seen this year, all things considered. You can’t win them all!
Score: 2.5/5