Hit Man

Gary Johnson, who is apparently based on a real person, lives a decent and reasonably normal life as a university lecturer who spices things up by moonlighting as an assassin. Well, not a real assassin of course; the New Orleans police use Gary's superb acting skills to lure out potential clients eager to order murders. Gary is scarily good at playing the part of a stone-cold hitman until smouldering client Madison Masters melts his heart. After their meeting, nothing stays the same and Gary must decide whether to abandon his assassin persona or take the leap he never thought he'd face: change his identity entirely.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for when I first heard about Hit Man, but I'm glad this film exists. Because this was one of the sharpest and edgiest romantic comedies I've seen in a long time. That should be said right away. Richard Linklater, along with Glen Powell, has produced an absolutely phenomenal script that is so exquisitely intelligent and clever that the corners of my mouth still ache after laughing so much in the cinema. Hit Man is something as strange as a summery New Orleans noir that also manages to warm with an incredibly sweet love story with a slightly macabre undertone. Glen Powell, I forgive you for the awful Anyone But You, because the chemistry with Adria Arjona is downright sparkling and his comic Mr Ripley breadth is often brilliant.

Between assassination episodes, Linklater takes some philosophical breaths in an auditorium to explore what it means to change as a human being, interspersed with mug shots of gullible clients and a cavalcade of increasingly ridiculous Gary disguises. The comedy elements are as balanced as they are original, and the delightfully biting dialogue elevated an already entertaining tale to unexpected heights. As a comedy, Linklater doesn't care much about right and wrong, thankfully; Hit Man is about breaking out of your shell and daring to change as a person, as long as you don't have the New Orleans police breathing down your neck.

The comic scenes don't always convince, and some of the film's twists and turns are resolved a little too quickly, but there's so much confidence and heart in this genre mash-up that it doesn't really matter. Hit Man is a hilarious romcom with just the right amount of darkness and twisted police thriller, which also manages to be both light-hearted and thought-provoking at the same time. In other words, it's Linklater's most watchable film since Boyhood and is highly recommended to all the lovebirds out there who want to cool off in the darkness of the cinema.