Why don’t they make movies like Hit Man anymore? Netflix’s fizzy, charming new comedy, directed by Boyhood’s Richard Linklater, is exactly the kind of movie we’re often told is unfilmable in the year 2024. It’s got a wholly sanitised depiction of American law enforcement. Bolshy and unapologetic sex scenes. And a deeply problematic romance at its centre. In an era when “Big Woke” has supposedly homogenised cinema into a kind of sexless, inoffensive slurry, Hit Man is a film that seems to flout the rules. And yet, despite this, Linklater’s film has been a hit, with both critics and the few dogged cinemagoers who managed to catch it during its (very) limited theatrical run.
It’s no surprise people have loved it: Hit Man is a world of fun. Anyone But You’s Glen Powell is shape-shifting and beaverishly charismatic in the lead role, playing a philosophy professor who moonlights as an ersatz assassin-for-hire in police sting operations. Andor actor Adria Arjona plays a domestic abuse victim who attempts to hire him to kill her husband; the pair begin a libidinous relationship, predicated on a pretty reprehensible case of false identity.
