Hitman (July 20)

Friend has been recommending this movie since the beginning of the month and every opportunity has come and gone so much so that Wife described it as the ongoing “Raya the Last Dragoning,” which is the term we apparently use for a movie that permanently remains on our Must See list while never being seen. Friend had mentioned a Glen Powell obsession by describing her reasons for seeing Twisters as such:

“1. Glen Powell”

End of list. Which I was attracted to as a rationale mostly because of his winning performance as a homoerotic asshat in Maverick and a wizard casting the beguiling spell of unsexiness as a clearly sexy leading man in Anyone But You. Review of this movie (I’m late to the party, as already mentioned) have talked about Glen Powell’s mesmerizing ability to chameleon his way through dozens of disguises, called it Linklater’s best movie, and raved about its sizzle. And in so many ways its easy to see how this film worms its way into your suggested feed: it plays with genre (workplace comedy, buddy cop, romcom), takes advantage of the spiciness of its two lead actors, and finds ways to make for some twisty additions to the genre of hitman romcoms.

Probably the biggest and most successful gimmick (spoiler) in Hitman is the almost Shakespearean quality to the way in which Gary Johnson meets Madison as an alter ego and then has to persist with the act in order to continue to see her, and the subsequent way in which their reliance on knowing as little as possible about one another leads to the building of tension as they must question one another’s motives. In a close second is the absolutely charming way in which Powell is able to send up homages to cinematic icons through his carousel of impressions from Christian Bale’s American Psycho to a Wonka-esque (Johnny Depp era) character. Linklater gives a kind of fan-servicey equivalent to Adria Arjona, the female lead, where she gets to put on costumes and perform her own set of male fantasies, but really that’s giving the film too little credit, because Madison is such an unknown quantity at all times and her actions are being Roshmoned by Gary’s interactions with both the police and her.

Hitman is a really pleasant, spicy hot watch, and really should’ve had a cinematic release, but it serves as a nice spiritual inheritor to last decade’s Mr Right and an impressive showing from Powell with the writer’s credit as well.