Everything is true or almost everything (as clarified by two mentions at the beginning and end of the film). Or the story of Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), a suburban philosophy teacher with an orderly life, ornithologist and cat man (two, called Me and It). A handyman, he supplements his income by working as a technician for an undercover police unit. Following a very American method, its agents must push suspects to indict themselves – even if it means forcing their hand a little.
A gifted amateur
When the undercover detective is subject to disciplinary action, Gary replaces him at short notice by posing as a hitman. Against all expectations, the auxiliary reveals an innate talent in the job and the double game, which he takes to. His indictment rate becomes record. Until the day when, in the personality of the killer Ron (somewhere between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise), he agrees to see Maddy (Adria Arjona), a young woman whom he dissuaded from sponsoring the murder of her husband.
Romantic detour
The story then takes the detour of the romantic in relation to what we guess to be the facts. We don’t know what part of the director’s or producers’ wishes is in this regard. But Hitman then ceases to echo the theoretical reflections that Gary provokes in his students on masks and social roles.
A delicious comedy, notably thanks to its actors, the film gradually becomes more banal and relatively predictable in its last part. We remain far from the formal experiments of the director of Boyhoodeven if, depending on the identities assumed by Gary, Linklater and Glen Powell have fun with tasty references to pop culture hitmen.
Hitman Police comedy Of Richard Linklater Scenario Richard Linklater and Glen Powell With Glen Powell, Adria Arjona,… 1h55
