Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2024)

[Never Cursed]

Richard Linklater's Hit Man (one of the best films of last/this year) will likely release worldwide mid-May, since it's coming out May 16 in Brazil.

[brundlefly]

Teaser for Linklater's Hit Man, with a June 7th Netflix date.

[reygar5]

I can’t wait to see Hit Man when it comes out in May. I’m a huge fan of Richard Linklater and Glen Powell, and this film looks like a blast. It’s a rare combination of action, comedy, romance, and suspense, with a clever twist on the hitman genre. The reviews from Venice and Toronto have been glowing, and I’ve heard it’s one of Linklater’s most entertaining and original films. Plus, Adria Arjona is stunning as the femme fatale.

[brundlefly]

Trailer

[liam fennell]

I got out of Hit Man a few hours ago and I find myself kind of bowled over by the hard to read moral complexity I found in it at the end. This movie is pretending to be one thing, a breezy fun little bit of time-passing, complete with stock dirty-talking buddy cops — the Gary/Ron character in it is (absurdly) a part-time pretend 'hit man' working alongside a bantering team of undercover cops in order to pay bills in between university lectures on philosophy and psychology (his dogs are named Ego and Id) — but it really seems to be doing something else entirely and I couldn't be more pleased with the weird mixed message! That said, I don't know how it makes me feel, aside from pleased that I find these things there to be interpreted and puzzled over (so I write a bit). I wonder are the trees obscuring the forest. I wonder am I lost in the forest. I'd say this is the mark of a good movie. It was also entertaining and well made.

Too much about too little, perhaps, and a few spoilers possibly:

I don't know Linklater's work except Dazed & Confused so I don't know if this is familiar territory for him or not, if the political dimension is really there or if I'm just projecting like crazy. The first movie here, the breezy fun one, was what I expected; naturalistic but highly controlled, beautiful photography, clever, lots of laughs, good music, etc. The second movie hidden under the surface — the bitter and desperate political movie — is something else entirely. Again, I might be projecting but the timing is interesting. Why this story now.

The story is fun, I very much admire the relatively sober treatment of the absurd premise, and the movie's quality overall is exceptional. Excellent actors. Particularly impressive for me was a masterful and ingenious scene en route to the denouement, a scene which involves a tense situation that is unusually cinematic — both aesthetically with the staging and performances, and also from a storytelling point of view — in that it portrays in a single sequence the two lead characters themselves balancing on a high wire directing, acting, improvising, and collaborating in the brilliant staging of a scene for the cops' hidden microphone as part of the plot machinations!

The movie, unless I'm wildly misreading it (which isn't impossible, I'm an idiot), seems to be advocating for essentially the adoption of short-term fascistic solutions for dealing with problems, in particular those presented by the types of people who are the sort who endorse, at least tacitly, the tenets and mindsets associated with fascism: the racists, the crooked cops, the spousal abusers, the blackmailers, the would-be employers of hit men. Secret police spying and deception are here shown as good if they catch 'bad' guys or help you get a date with a pretty girl; blurring the line between entrapment and a legit sting is similarly portrayed as well worth doing. The people who get murdered in this picture aren't themselves murderers, and the committed murders are not exactly done in self-defense. They are committed out of self-interest and desperation. The murderer-heroes are only portrayed superficially as good (we're told they're good people but we don't see much evidence, and the woman in particular seems willing to commit crimes at the drop of a hat) and we never do see any sound justification for their actions; instead the couple are directly depicted as talented/clever/attractive, and thus deserving. The only difference between the murderous woman and her murderous ex-husband — they both try to hire the hit man — is we spend more time with the woman. This is so gray. It then goes on to advocate for embracing and integrating the newly revealed fascistic side into your personality after it earns you rewards; Gary/Ron's hit man identity is too valuable/useful for him to ever again fully repress.

So it's a fun breezy movie about an identity crisis that turns into, by dint of the new identity so casually assumed, one about fucking murdering people we don't like in order to become (from our perspective) better people and live better lives. It's saying, to me, that sometimes this is necessary, and, I guess, that if you have draw a line then a self-preserving one is okay, even if you kind of deserve it. This seems to me very complex! Kant is name-dropped briefly in the movie; one's categorical imperative is of course situation-dependent, but a clear-thinking person's moral compass is generally not going to point in the direction of murdering people for selfish reasons, not even to escape the earned consequences of one's own prior actions. A desperate person isn't necessarily thinking clearly. I imagine, reductio ad absurdum, a sequel where they kill the mailman for delivering the overdue bills they still (desperately) don't want to pay. Where does this behavior stop.

Now, the endorsement of fighting fascistic fire with fascistic fire thing that I perceive (and I mostly perceive it so clearly because Gary/Ron explicitly states the necessity of murder, historically, to his class during a lecture scene about half-way through; he doesn't use the F word, but it's expressed by him more than once that some people just need to die) is for most of the runtime secondary to the identity theme, but it's in the end so very central to the synthesized Gary/Ron identity that it for me dominates the movie. To use the movie's own terminology, this is a movie where the movie's ego allows its id out of its cage in order to solve problems, and then when, free of its cage and the problems freshly solved, the id refuses to go back into the cage, the ego is left handcuffed to it instead as a compromise. The movie claims it is stronger for this newer, better id-ego combination. It has become a 'real person'. When you break it down to those terms, look at the whole thing as symbolism, and apply a historical and political perspective, then it IMO turns into a kind of realistic depiction of how reality actually works. You really do have to fight fire with fire sometimes, and you don't exactly do it because you want to. You sometimes even have to burn down the whole forest to clear out the undergrowth and allow it to grow back healthier and stronger. Sometimes perhaps it doesn't grow back at all; I wonder if the movie is both an illustration of the necessity for action, and also a warning.

That the ultimate callous murder is depicted as hot/romantic, and that they live together happily after after, is just kind of beyond the pale in an interesting way. With time I might even find it profoundly unsettling. Gary/Ron is a nice guy; I like him, you know? The behavior on display at the end is just so casually disturbing, and then it doubles down and goes into a not at all obviously ironic voice over (maybe I'm tone deaf) where Gary/Ron tells us how they lived happily ever after, complete with shots of them in their new super nice house, with their new kids and so on. Again, these are murderers who murdered out of pure self-interest; I'm convinced the movie is too well crafted and Linklater is too intelligent for this to be simply what it appears to be, a cliched use of stylized movie glamour. It's telling us (okay, me) something, and the message I'm receiving is a strong one, maybe even a good one, but not a particularly palatable one. Strange movie!

[hearthesilence]

I got out of Hit Man a few hours ago and I find myself kind of bowled over by the hard to read moral complexity I found in it at the end...

I'm going to see Hit Man this coming weekend, but FWIW, Jonathan Rosenbaum (who I imagine will post a bit more about it down the road) made this comment:

Spoiler

As with BERNIE, it's about hypocrisy, and as with Varda's LE BONHEUR, it's designed to make us uneasy and conflicted about our desire to believe in mythology. It's fun with a bitter aftertaste.

(Doesn't really need spoilers, but some people can be a bit sensitive.)

[therewillbeblus]

There’s definitely something to analyzing Hit Man as a meditation on the relativity of morality and identity, but I also think it really is just a delightfully-absurd rom-com. Its absurdism might be the watered-down kind, but it does fit with existential absurdism, and it decides to be optimistic for our potential instead of cynical in a binary sense when matching action to outcome (e.g. a lie is bad so now this person is too). Linklater has spent his career either just having fun or investigating these philosophical topics, and here’s a nice fusion that doesn’t go too far in one direction on the surface while never compromising with half-measures in either. I loved it.

[hearthesilence]

The reaction has been fairly polarizing, but I can't agree with Gerald Peary who seriously misreads the film, lumping it in with a raft of "hit man" films when Linklater and Powell's film addresses everything he finds appalling about those movies. At least to me, Hit Man plays like a sly yet thoughtful piece of film criticism. It dissects the kind of fantasies suggested by films involving hit men and assassins and interrogates the relationship audiences have with this genre. Peary was disgusted with an ending he called facile and amoral...

Spoiler

...but the film sets it up so that no one in their right mind should be comfortable with what it implies. What Gary and Maddy achieve is the ultimate goal so many of the film's supporting characters had when they tried to carry out their ridiculous but horrendous fantasies of having someone wiped out of existence - to have their lives completely fulfilled, free of the one obstacle to their happiness. It's pro forma for a "moral" film not to have this happen, to have a reckoning, to show how impossible it would be for its characters to realize this, etc., and sometimes you have a Crimes and Misdemeanors where it's allowed to happen at the service of a dark view of the world, but all of those routes now feel too easy. What Linklater pulls off is trickier and very much apiece with his warmer and optimistic view of the world: the dark fantasy is completely realized, but I believe he trusts the audience to feel put off by the implications, to also see it as a complete fairy tale that could never happen this way even as we see it play out as the "happy ending." I saw it in a packed theater and got the impression everyone around me felt a little gross (and amused) by those final scenes, and that's EXACTLY how it's supposed to play. What does Peary expect, a blatant comeuppance so we can all feel comfortable and morally satisfied with ourselves? THAT would be facile.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I really enjoyed Hit Man; a film that equally feels like freewheeling and trivial as it does a weightier muse on identity and self, but it pulls off the balance well. Powell is good fun - I particularly liked his Patrick Bateman impression. And he and Adria Arjona have the kind of chemistry you've not seen in a film like this since Clooney and Lopez.

[jbeall]

I really enjoyed Hit Man; a film that equally feels like freewheeling and trivial as it does a weightier muse on identity and self, but it pulls off the balance well. Powell is good fun - I particularly liked his Patrick Bateman impression. And he and Adria Arjona have the kind of chemistry you've not seen in a film like this since Clooney and Lopez.

Agreed, especially with that last point. Startlingly good onscreen chemistry between the leads.

[starmanof51]

I particularly liked his Patrick Bateman impression.

Hopefully someone is compiling a list. I think the red haired confusing gender one was Tilda Swinton

[Mr Sausage]

I'm with blus, this works as a breezy, darkly funny rom com with great chemistry between the leads.

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I didn't see the movie as about identity or ethics. I thought it was all about acting, about the joyous, reality-rejigging, hire wire act of performance, with the ending as the most macabre possible version of that old improv idea: committing to the bit.

Spoiler

I mean, look at how much sheer fun Gary/Ron and Madison are having as they improv their way through that scene in the third act. They're having a blast putting on their performance, fully present and engaged, enjoying each other and themselves in the act of sustained creation. It's wonderful, and only bursts when they're reminded that there is a very serious audience, technically. Thrillers like these are always a flimsy tissue of lies, yet here it's all about the joy in that very tissue rather than the anxiety, because it's not about a tense scramble but about artistry. What it means to make one's life work about acting.

This was great fun. Two pretty, charismatic people with untapped talent learning to act together to create a life of joyous performance just for each other.

[therewillbeblus]

I like your reading about acting (especially since, in a way, this is a portfolio project for Glen Powell to show the world he's both a versatile actor and the next Tom Cruise). It's difficult to discard themes of identity and ethics completely, given that it's Linklater, but he's barely grazing them next to many other pronounced aspects of the film (they're moreso narrative devices used to achieve your identified theme). This opts for shades of fun above other, more 'serious' interests at every possible turn or fork in the road

[hearthesilence]

I've seen some people complain incessantly about how they don't like Powell and think he's unattractive and dull - not exactly the kind of discourse that interests me about this film or any other. Anyway, I liked him in this, but I guess there's some polarizing views about him as a film star.

I'm with Sausage, and there's even a new (albeit strangely edited) video that just came out where Linklater talks more about the aspect of performance in this film. They don't give him much time to discuss it further, but still, here's the most relevant part:

The idea of "Hitman" as a movie originates in 2001 with a Skip Hollandsworth article in Texas Monthly. At that point, I've been friends with Skip for a number of years. Skip's brilliant. He's got this incredible nose for a true crime story. And Gary Johnson, in this case, the undercover hitman. He's just letting you kind of have your fantasy. He's your fantasy of what a hitman is, and he lets you play out. He's somehow able to persuade people who are rich and not so rich, successful and not so successful, that he's the real thing. He fools them every time. And by the time you're really sitting down with who you think is a hitman, you're ready to be fooled. You've already, in the movie we say crossed that psychotic Rubicon. You're ready to believe. And I've seen enough of these surveillance tapes and listened to enough audio. I got Skip's entire file. And writing the script, it was fascinating to go through all this material and see how people are almost playing like they're in a movie. I realized not everyone fantasized about the same hitman. Every sting operation was a performance.

[therewillbeblus]

I hope folks here are opting to see this in theatres vs. on Netflix. Lately I've become more of a streaming guy (or less of a Bible-thumper for seeing everything theatrically) for various reasons, but this didn't play nearly as well for me a second time without an audience. Still good, but a night-and-day difference from the theatrical viewing's glee

[nicolas]

I hope folks here are opting to see this in theatres vs. on Netflix. Lately I've become more of a streaming guy (or less of a Bible-thumper for seeing everything theatrically) for various reasons, but this didn't play nearly as well for me a second time without an audience. Still good, but a night-and-day difference from the theatrical viewing's glee

A Canadian Blu-ray is also upcoming in less than a month already! https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Hit-Man-Blu-ray/362109/

[Finch]

Orbit have a purchase link up for the Canadian Blu ray. Perhaps a Criterion BD/4K in December or January?

[Rupert Pupkin]

I really hope that Criterion is looking after this title since no signs of a blu-ray US release appears (except a poor PQ Canadian release according to a some people who bought the blu-ray).
This was a pleasing surprise to say the least. At first it reminds me "Confession of a dangerous mind" (which has some great scenes but wasn't that good).
The jazzy music and somehow the story/plot makes me think of a good Woody Allen movie, sexy, funny. I only knew Glen Powell recently from the movie "Anyone But You".
He is very good and funny and this is a romantic comedy - I like the end; I also thought that Norah Jones had a little sister until I jumped to check at imdb.com.
I have seen Boyhood like 10 times or perhaps more, the Before... trilogy is one of my favorite movies (especially the first one; the last one is too dark and Bergmanian for my little heart).
This one is one of the best recent Linklater's movie; if not his best since Boyhood IMHO.
What's the big project a-la "Boyhood" Linklater is working on ? I have seen something about this in Libération but the movie is not ready.
Oh, and I would have seen someone like Steven Soderberg doing a movie like this - perhaps more daring about the photography, but the way the sexy scenes are shots makes me think of S.Soderberg (not only because there is a super hot brunette and that he did "Out Of Sight") but I don't know, I think that he would have to do a movie like this.

[Matt]

Apollo 10 1/2, also a Netflix exclusive, never got a US physical release. I almost wonder if Criterion’s deal with Netflix, from whom they’ve released a tidy 10 films and no more, is done. Atlantics and American Factory, announced by Netflix as forthcoming in January 2020, have still not been released, and I would be shocked to see them surface now when all buzz for them is dead. Both, as well as the Linklater films, clearly have 4K masters ready to go, and Criterion would not be creating a lot of new extras for them 4.5 years later.

Criterion’s Cousin, Cousine and Diabolo Menthe for the 2020s. (That one’s for the old timers.)

[Rupert Pupkin]

yeah I remember (I still have it) Criterion's printed catalogue which was in the gorgeous Brazil DVD box set. J.Mulvaney was very kind to reply my email confirming that the DVD was region ALL (at that time I did not have a DVD unlocked multilane); in this printed catalogue, among other titles which would never see the light of the day : "Cousin, Cousine" was "coming in soon".

[thirtyframesasecond]

Isn't Linklater making Merrily We Roll Along over the next two decades?