Hit Man (2024)
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Hit Man Movie Review
Hit Man is a 2024 comedy film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Glen Powell. It’s one of the director’s most lackluster works.
Professional killer Gary Johnson breaks protocol to help a desperate woman trying to flee an abusive husband and finds himself falling for her. This movie is a return to crowd-pleasers for Linklater and I cannot be more displeased with that decision of his. I prefer his more mature works like ‘Boyhood’ and the Before trilogy. This film is more in line with ‘Bernie’ and ‘School of Rock’, and ultimately it’s even inferior to those two.
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I have never quite gravitated toward spy and hit men stories, so just in that alone this movie wasn’t for me. But my main issue here was its lack of laughs. For what is touted to be a comedy, the movie is surprisingly devoid of humor. It doesn’t even try to be amusing most of the time. It cannot, thus, be considered to be a romantic comedy even if there is a significant romance in it. I don’t know what this movie is, but whatever Linklater was trying to do with it, he didn’t succeed unfortunately.
Hit Man does benefit from an excellent central performance. Hollywood has been trying to make Glen Powell happen for a while now, and while I still do not love him as much as so many others do, I do find this performance to be his best work yet. He was so well cast in the main role of a fake hit man so to speak. He is very charismatic and memorable in it. All of the other performers failed to compete with him and their characters were underdeveloped. The romance was also weak sauce.
The movie has some solid dialogue, fine character arc for its protagonist and an interesting theme of identity, but for the most part the plot is inferior to most of the director’s previous works, settling into overly populist territory. But it’s not even as entertaining as it obviously attempted to be – the pacing is awkward, sluggish and just bad. Thus, it doesn’t really work no matter how you view it.
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Richard Linklater returns to crowd-pleasing territory with Hit Man, and as someone who prefers his more mature works, I am not pleased at all with this development. This is one of his weakest efforts to date, a film that has a slight plot and it’s never at all funny despite being touted as a comedy. Glen Powell is very charismatic in the main role and the movie has solid dialogue and a fine arc for its protagonist, but it’s so awkwardly and slowly paced that it doesn’t even succeed as a blockbuster in spite of its obviously populist intentions.
My Rating – 3
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