Has Hollywood just birthed the next movie star?
Genre: ???????
Premise: A part time cop pretends to be a hit man to trap people hiring contract killers but changes tactics when one of his clients ends up being hot and sexy.
About: This movie was born out of an online article that I reviewed last year. It should be noted that this is one of the best ways to sell a movie idea these days. You find an interesting story out there in the real world and you write about it. The movie paired longtime collaborators Rinchard Linklater and Glen Powell, whose finished product ended up being one of the big purchases at the Venice Film Festival, going for 20 million dollars to Netflix.
Writers: Richard Linklater, Glen Powell, and Skip Hollandworth
Details: 2 hours long
So let me explain to you how these things work.
This movie sold for a giant amount of movie to Netflix after its debut at the Venice Film Festival. The non-initiated would assume that that must mean the movie was amazing. But that’s not how the movie business operates.
The reason this movie sold for so much money is because for the first time in a long time, Hollywood believes they have a movie star in the making in Glen Powell. Top Gun Maverick made SO MUCH MONEY that they figured SOMEONE had to come out of that as a rising star. And with Miles Teller already getting his shot, they went with Glen Powell.
Anything But You’s runaway hit status only bolstered this belief. Glen Powell HAD to be the next big thing. Or did he? It was easy to make the argument that the only reason Top Gun Maverick made so much money was because of superstar, Tom Cruise. But a good case could also be made that the only reason Anything But You made a ton of money was because of Sydney Sweeney. Which would mean that Glen Powell just got lucky.
It’s notoriously difficult to identify movie stars. You don’t know until they happen. From Alex Pettyfer to Eric Bana to Sam Worthington to Clive Owen to Colin Farrell to Josh Hartnett, Hollywood has a long list of “swing and a miss” movie star hopefuls.
And it goes both ways. I’ll never forget watching Bradley Cooper in Jim Carrey’s “Yes Man” and thinking how sorry I was for him. I thought, “That’s the kind of guy always meant to get second billing. He’ll never be the top dog.” I turned out to be a little wrong on that one.
The only legitimate movie star we’ve found in the last decade was Chris Pratt, which may have been the hardest to predict in history. The guy was known as the overweight 10th billing crappy boyfriend on Parks and Recreation.
In other words, who knows what’s going to become of Glen Powell? He’s certainly getting his shot. We’ll see just how much star power he has later this year when Twisters comes out. But, for right now, let’s look at his splashy new streaming flick, Hit Man.
Gary Johnson is a nerdy philosophy teacher, cat owner, and part-time desk cop. One day, he’s thrown into action as a fake hit man. The cops need him to entrap someone who’s trying to kill a business partner. All Gary has to do is convince this guy he’s a hit man, get him to give him the money, and admit that it’s for murder. And, what do you know, Gary is AWESOME at it.
He’s so awesome that he becomes their go-to “hit man.” The great thing about Gary is that he caters his hit man persona to whoever he’s talking to. If there’s a lonely housewife, he’s more sexy. If it’s a crabby old gun owner, he’ll throw on tattoos and swear like a sailor. At one point he even plays a heartless German dressed in black, complete with accent.
Gary’s hit rate is close to 100%.
But that all changes when he meets Madison. Since it’s a younger woman, Gary goes with his rugged edgy sexy persona, “Ron.” Ron is a smooth operator, a ladies’ man, and we can feel the crackle of electricity between them. But when Madison is about to give him the money to kill her abusive husband, Gary improvs and tells her to keep it and use it to escape him. He doesn’t want this woman going to prison.
Weeks later, Madison calls Gary and wants to see him. Of course, he’s not Gary to Madison. He’s Ron. So he must see her as Ron. When they meet, she thanks him. She ran away from the guy. She’s single now. And… maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to go back to her place. We can figure out what happens next. A whole lot of sexy time.
Before Ron, I mean Gary, knows it, he’s in a quasi-relationship with Madison. Which is tricky because, well, he’s not himself. He’s this persona. And the more time he spends with her, the more lines between his real self and persona get crossed. But that turns out to be just one part of the problem. The other is that Madison may not be as innocent as she first implied. Maybe Gary should’ve been able to figure that out since, you know, what kind of woman goes out with a hit man?
Hit Man is a Hollywood engine trapped in an indie chassis. It’s a weird movie with a weird script. Linklater can’t shake his indie roots. He’s never understood the “dumb fun” nature of Hollywood movies – stuff like Bad Boys – and therefore can’t help but add 5 minute scenes of characters arguing about the existential conflict inherent in marriage. Which is what keeps this movie from ever finding its groove.
It’s a comedy! No, wait. It’s serious! Oh wait, it’s a comedy again! Wait, it’s a romance. No, now it’s a sexy thriller! Actually, hold on… it’s a crime movie. The tone is shiftier than a drug addict on the corner of Hollywood and Vine.
Linklater’s confusion is evident when we watch Gary and Madison’s first scene together. The movie had been rolling along as a comedy for a while. Yet this scene is both serious and sexy. There were numerous opportunities to cut back to the cops listening in and making fun of how Gary’s clearly gone gaga over this girl, yet for this scene, comedy was abandoned. It was strange. You never had a feel for what the tone was.
From a screenwriting perspective, the script should work, as we’re using one of the more reliable tools in the screenwriting toolbox – dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when we know something that one, or more, of the characters do not. It’s an important tool that I dedicate an entire section to in my DIALOGUE BOOK.
We know that Gary is not who he says he is. He’s a cop. But Madison DOES NOT know this. Whenever you build a romance around a lie, there’s going to be interest from the viewer about how that ends. Because we know it can only end badly. And we want to stick around to see what ‘badly’ looks like.
But the use of dramatic irony is pretty basic stuff. You’ll see it almost every TV show going, in some form or another. The good writers can twist and turn dramatic irony in ways that the average writer never would’ve thought of.
(Spoiler) In Hit Man, the central line of dramatic irony is between Gary and Madison. We know Gary isn’t really a hit man. She does not. That’s where the viewer’s intrigue lies. But about 70 minutes into the movie, the gig is up and Gary has to admit to Madison who he is. She confides to *Ron* that she killed her husband and he loses it. He admits that he’s not Ron. He’s Gary. He’s a cop. Hence, the dramatic irony *between them* is over.
But then Gary heads back to the station for an emergency meeting. The captain believes that Madison is the primary suspect for the husband’s murder. And hence, A BRAND NEW LINE of dramatic irony begins. Almost all of the cops don’t know that Gary has been secretly seeing Madison. Nor do they know that he now knows that she killed him. BUT WE DO. And that’s how to cleverly utilize dramatic irony. The second you cut it off in one plot, you add it to another.
It’s actually a more sophisticated scene than even that since one of the cops in the room spotted Gary on a date with Madison once. So he knows Gary isn’t telling the whole truth. This is an advanced form of dramatic irony that has to do with inferior and superior perspectives which I go into in my dialogue book. If you want to become a master at one of the most valuable screenwriting tools there is, make sure you buy that book.
Despite its wonky tone and inconsistency, it all comes together in the end with an unpredictable final turn. Now, does this movie prove that Glen Powell is a movie star? That I don’t know. The only reliable metric I’ve come up with for what makes a movie star is, “Can you not look away whenever they’re on screen?” Doesn’t matter if you like them or hate them. Can you not look away? And, for the most part, I think I wanted to watch Glen Powell. *I think.* Maybe I need more evidence. What do you guys think?
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You may have wondered, why did this article – out of millions of articles published online – become the one that was purchased to be made into a movie. Nobody but the people involved know for sure. But always factor in movies that have roles which allow the actor to play multiple parts (in this case, multiple personas) – those are highly coveted by actors. So there’s a good chance some very good actors are going to want to be in the movie. No doubt that helped Linklater snag one of the fastest rising stars in Hollywood.
