I heard early rumblings about Richard Linklater’s Hit Man film when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival in September. The movie was well received on its festival run and its fresh Rotten Tomatoes score is gushing with rave reviews. After opening in theaters at the end of May, Hit Man debuted on Netflix on June 7. There’s only a small smattering of bad reviews on RT. They’re pretty harsh and they’re mostly right.
Linklater is emblematic of the independent film renaissance of the 1990s. His movie Slacker helped to define that era, and he’s gone on to become a ranging filmmaker with an Oscar and a reputation for innovation. I like Linklater, and Slacker, Waking Life, Dazed and Confused and School of Rock are great movies. I’m dying to see his Nouvelle Vague film about Jean Seberg and the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s movie, Breathless. Linklater’s made great films. Hit Man isn’t one of them.
The biggest culprit here is the writing by Linklater and his star, Glen Powell. Powell plays a University of New Orleans philosophy professor. He also moonlights as a part time undercover techie, wiring microphones for New Orleans Police Department stings of murder-for-hire deals. What? This is all explained in an introductory scene that’s just a few cuts short of a montage. Linklater mostly tells us everything we need to know about Gary Johnson except his actual name. The visual storytelling is pretty strong, but then Linklater and Powell insist on spelling the whole thing out with Gary’s pedantic narration. It mostly gets worse from there.
Glen Powell is genuinely charming and there’s a fun running gag about the various costumes Gary creates once the police decide to cast him as the hit man in their stings. The best parts of the film take place in the police surveillance van where the part time undercover fake hit man and the police officers deploy their almost slapstick investigations. There are some genuinely funny moments in the movie mostly thanks to strong support work from Retta, Sanjay Rao and Austin Amelio. But when Gary is pontificating a philosophical soliloquy like he’s reading from a bad script or we’re subjected to the interminable rom in this com, Hit Man goes way off target.
The biggest problem with professor Gary’s lectures is that Linklater and Powell use Gary’s class to point directly at the movie’s themes. It’s almost as bad as the narration and it seems odd for a movie maker like Linklater to do so much dumbing down. But Hit Man is a flimsy pastiche of pseudo intellectualism, unbelievable romance fueled by insufferable banter and cop comedy that doesn’t think the average Netflix viewer is smart enough to get it. I’d argue that the average Netflix viewer is smart enough to understand Hit Man even if they’re too dumb to hate it.
And I don’t hate Hit Man. It’s just a disappointment after all the hype. If you grew up in Generation X you’ll remember Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype.” Linklater’s 1990s films like Slacker exuded authenticity, reflecting the era’s skeptical idealism. He also showed he could helm a mainstream hit like School of Rock. He re-booted Bad News Bears and adapted Philip K. Dick. Movies like Tape, Waking Life and Boy are technically and formally innovative. It’s rare to like every movie that a particular director makes. Tarantino made The Hateful 8. Ang Lee made The Hulk. I can sum up this review by paraphrasing one of the most annoying bad lines in this movie: not all Linklater films are good Linklater films.
Hit Man is streaming on Netflix
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.