About halfway through “Hit Man,” Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) finds his stride while teaching a college philosophy class.
We’ve seen him teach a few variations of this class already, but this time, he’s got a little more pep in his step. As he goes on about the concept of the self, what we consider to be moral and how our primal instincts urge us to act, passion seems to flow out of him. He’s standing a little taller, his voice rings a little louder, he’s flashing his dimples whenever he gets the chance. One of his students leans over to her friend and says: “When did our professor get hot?”
This is, objectively, a very funny thing to say about a man who has spent the entire film up to this point looking like Glen Powell. But the student has a point – the Gary Johnson we meet at the beginning of “Hit Man” lacked the confidence of the one standing before her in this moment. He might have the same silly hairstyle, the same cartoonish smile, the same glasses. But this version of Gary has learned how to perform, how to alter his very being to appeal to whatever audience he finds himself in front of at any given time. In that way, Gary is a movie star – and “Hit Man” solidifies Powell as one as well.
Directed by Richard Linklater and co-written by Linklater and Powell, “Hit Man” is a smart, sexy crime romp that explores what so many Linklater movies are interested in – identity, human interaction, and – above all else – star power. Linklater’s movies have elevated movie stars time and time again, from Matthew McConaughey in “Dazed and Confused” to Ethan Hawke in “The Before Trilogy.” In “Hit Man,” Linklater’s insight into what makes a good movie star bleeds over into the performative nature of life itself. But the movie is less interested in what a performance might be trying to hide than it is in what that performance reveals.
Gary’s newfound confidence comes from his side gig moonlighting as a hitman. Well, a fake hitman. In his down time, this painfully normal college professor works for the New Orleans Police Department posing as a hitman in an attempt to catch and arrest the type of people who might hire a contract killer. That is to say, idiots.
Despite Gary’s affable, dorky personality, he’s quite good at the manipulation this job necessitates. And Powell is good at slipping in and out of different physicalities (and a slew of silly wigs and costumes) as Gary moves from persona to persona, taking on hitman-esque qualities he believes will appeal to that particular client. In essence, what Gary is doing is no different than what Powell and other stars do everyday – putting on a mask that will make him appealing to his audience. He can be a Russian mobster, a buttoned up John Wick type, or a redneck with a neck tattoo, and then head home to feed his cat and have dinner without batting an eye.
But as Gary’s hitman characteristics begin to seep into his real life, it begs the question – who’s the real Gary to begin with? When Gary (moonlighting as Ray, the coolest of his alter egos) meets Maddy (Adria Arjona), a woman who is contemplating killing her abusive husband, he develops a bit of a crush. When Maddy enters the frame, she gets the quintessential old movie star type of entrance, back lit as she walks into the diner, a little blurry before she comes fully into focus. The entrance signifies a performative nature of her own, one that can match Gary’s beat for beat.
After this initial meeting, Gary (as Ray) starts to woo Maddy. At the beginning of any relationship, there’s a healthy amount of performance going on, putting your best foot forward and hiding the less savory parts of yourself until further notice. Maddy might think Gary is a hitman, and Gary might know that Maddy is the type of person who would hire a hitman, but even those truths don’t allow them to be completely open with each other at first. But, is there any such thing as the “real” you in the first place? Or, is the performance as important a part of who they are as anything else? Ray the hitman might be a part Gary is playing, but the more time Gary spends as Ray, the more Ray starts to bleed into Gary’s regular life. The more time Maddy spends with Gary/Ray, the more confident she becomes in her own ability to take control, for better or worse. What they choose to show to each other – and what they choose to conceal – becomes the truth of who they are.
But alas, a mask must come off at some point. Or must it? In “Hit Man,” everyone has the power to choose who they want to be, and they can change their mind whenever they want. From the moment Gary and Maddy’s relationship takes center stage, “Hit Man” becomes about watching two people (with positively sizzling chemistry, I might add) try to outperform each other, and getting off on the lie. Even when their respective truths come out, neither one of them much cares. It’s a comfort to know that everyone else is putting it on as much as you are. And maybe we could all be a little happier if we just accepted that, when it comes down to it, we’re all a bunch of con artists.