TRUE CRiME

ROMANCE

Richard Linklater teams with Glen Powell and Adria Arjona for Hit Man – a raucous, sexy, dark comedy based on a stranger-than-fiction tale. Total Film goes undercover to talk demythologising hitmen, multidimensional female characters and the resurgence of the Hollywood leading man.

Certain things only exist on the silver screen. Explosive car crashes where heroes walk away without so much as a sore neck; romcom protagonists waking up from a night of passion with perfect hair; academics who fight the forces of evil in their downtime, rather than marking homework. But even if we know to watch films with a heavy pinch of salt, the team behind Hit Man have been met with shock, confusion and even disappointment when audiences learn that, unlike in the movies… hitmen don’t really exist.

The dark comedy from Richard Linklater – co-written by and starring Glen Powell alongside Adria Arjona – bills itself as ‘a somewhat true story’, based on a 2001 Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth (co-writer of Linklater’s Bernie) about how an unassuming man called Gary Johnson became Houston’s most sought-after professional killer. But Johnson worked for the police, who would rush in and arrest those who ‘hired’ him.

The existence of hitmen that can be called to take out an annoying co-worker or a loathed ex may seem plausible as they’re so culturally ubiquitous but… Think about it. Why would anyone risk the electric chair for a relatively small payout from a stranger? And if hitmen were advertising their services to the general public, wouldn’t the authorities have noticed?

Linklater – the celebrated director of Boyhood, School of Rock and the Before trilogy – has had the existence (or lack thereof) of hitmen on his mind for years. ‘I’ve been fascinated with this for decades. I read true crime and I remember even buying “How to be a Hitman” and these manuals written by Southern California housewives, but it’s all bullshit!’ he laughs. ‘When I read Skip’s article, I remember calling to ask him and he goes, “There’s no record ever of a hitman at this level.” Rationally, of course there isn’t.’

Linklater admits many people ‘feel duped’, like they are hearing the tooth fairy isn’t real, but as the director points out: ‘We should all be super relieved that there aren’t real hitmen, shouldn’t we? That your sworn enemy can’t win the lottery and, just as a side note, bump you off for something you said 20 years ago. It’s really good news there’s not that.’

His co-writer Powell stars as Gary, the titular ‘hitman’ who is not actually a hitman, but a mild-mannered divorcee and professor who moonlights with law enforcement to entrap people who haven’t twigged that, as the actor puts it, ‘in modern times, it can’t exist. You theoretically have people being taken out by Russia or the Mafia, but a retail hitman is an illusion, and Gary taps into the fun of the illusion.’ However, as Powell’s co-star Arjona says, letting go of the idea of hitmen existing means confronting the idea that ‘if you want to do bad things, you gotta do it yourself’.

‘WE SHOULD ALL BE SUPER RELIEVED THERE AREN’T REAL HITMEN’

RICHARD LINKLATER

Arjona’s character, Madison, is not doing a ‘bad thing’ per se when she hires Gary to take out her abusive husband. However, by the time she is introduced to the story, Gary has his entrapment skills down to a fine art, transforming into a local assassin tailored to each client’s desires, be it a slick sharp-suited killer, a bandana-wearing gun nut with neck tattoos, or a bespectacled nerd with an Eastern European lilt. For Madison, he becomes ‘Ron’, a suave knight in shining armour who, unlike the sweet but awkward Gary, is ludicrously sexy. Before long, Madison and Ron are head over heels for one another, and Gary has to do whatever he can to protect her from her ex and his own sting operation.

Watching Powell and Arjona sizzle on screen and land Hepburn/Tracy-style zingers is pure cinematic dopamine, but the layers of profundity that slowly reveal themselves make this unpredictable tale one for the ages. Gary’s journey to becoming Ron isn’t just him assuming a new costume. It’s a new layer of skin.

Linklater’s films speak to universal themes around childhood, parenthood, love and community, and he explains that they ‘aren’t about extraordinary people. I’m often just taking something out of my own life, and drawing something out of personal experience to see if there is something meaningful or funny, and just trying to find the depth.’

While Hit Man might be one of his wilder premises (despite being based on a true story), Linklater is fundamentally still seeking that same depth; through Gary, the film asks about where the boundaries of honesty and selfactualisation lie. Farcical as the many twists and turns may be, there is universal truth in Gary’s extremely specific set of problems.

MASTER OF DISGUISE

The parallel between Gary’s professional subterfuge and Powell’s on-screen transformations wasn’t lost on the white-hot star. ‘It’s a version of dating, of Hollywood, of how we all operate on half-truth when you’re trying to put your best foot forward.’ So whether, in Powell’s case, that meant pretending to be a much better baseball player than he was when he auditioned for Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! or being as enchanting as possible during his early romances, he says that when ‘Rick and I were baking this, what made us laugh and what felt universal is that we could all be better versions of ourselves if we only just really committed to it.’

Powell, so charming talking to TF it’s as if he has used his Hit Man skills to transform into a custom-made dream interviewee, peppers in compliments between thoughtful answers (yes, flattery will get you everywhere with TF). He has hyper-engaged movie-star quality and versatility that makes him feel like a modernday Spencer Tracy, which was first spotted by Linklater when he cast him in Fast Food Nation as a teenager. The director recalls: ‘Hundreds of kids audition for even small parts like this, but Glen had something interesting. He had “it” even then.’ Having starred in hits like Top Gun: Maverick, Hidden Figures and Anyone But You, and now set to follow up Hit Man with Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters, Powell has – says Linklater – proved himself as an ‘old-school leading man. He is what Hollywood used to be looking for, and if anyone doubts that, this film shows Glen can do anything.’

Arjona is equally effusive about Powell and Linklater, referring to them as ‘my southern gentlemen’. But the paths of these two gentlemen have parallels outside of their four collaborations, both unwilling to be boxed into a single genre. Hollywood is famously risk-averse and once a filmmaker or actor successfully pulls off one thing, it demands more of the same. But the last decade has seen Powell and Linklater make comedies, romances, documentaries, action films, coming-of-age tales and innovative animations. For Powell, he puts it down to finally having ‘the political capital and the ability to get the movies I want made’.

Having come of age as a movie fan in the 90s in Austin, where Linklater was one of his heroes, Powell ‘watched every romcom that has ever existed with my mom and sisters. I got to put all of my love of that genre into this and play in that sandbox. I loved Top Gun, and Twister was one of the most defining movies of my childhood.’ Powell nearly went into finance (‘I just thought having a job meant working with numbers’) but instead fulfilled his childhood dreams by making ‘a run of movies that would personally get me into the theatre’. Linklater is similarly unconcerned about replicating past success. ‘I’ve never been “in” Hollywood,’ he claims, having always been based in Austin, Texas. ‘I don’t really have an employer. I just do whatever I’m obsessed with at the moment.’ Even after all the acclaim of Boyhood, which was robbed of the Best Picture Oscar (something, Linklater says, TF seems to be much more bothered by than he ever was), he asks: ‘How could I replicate it? What genre was Boyhood even in?’

‘[LINKL ATER] GIVES US A VOICE, W HICH WE DON’ T GET ALL THE TIME’

ADRIA ARJONA

After his break-out films Slacker and Dazed and Confused, Linklater moved on to Before Sunrise, the stunningly romantic piece starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy about two people falling in love over a single night in Vienna. ‘Looking back, that was a moment I could have done any big Hollywood film,’ the Oscarnominated director says. ‘I was approached by every studio after Dazed. But I used that opportunity to make this intimate, much smaller film that no one might ever let me make again. Just two people talking all night.’

MADISON AVENUE

One thing that also emerged out of Dazed and Confused was a commitment to writing dynamic and complicated women, which carries into Hit Man with Arjona’s Madison. Gary may deceive her, but Madison isn’t a two-dimensional femme fatale, nor a damsel in distress – she has far more tricks up her sleeve, and Arjona brings an emotional rawness and comedic chops that make her the perfect foil to Powell. It is the type of female character Linklater committed to because ‘I felt the teenage boys overrode Dazed,’ he admits. ‘I underachieved with what I wanted to capture with the female characters. I was kind of hard on myself and Before Sunrise was my way to try to have a really strong female voice.’

That commitment has remained ever since, with the director explaining, ‘I really am striving for equal. In Hit Man you do see Madison absolutely through [Gary’s] point of view, because that is the structure there, so it can’t be like Before where its 50/50, or female-led [films] like Where’d You Go, Bernadette, so its hard to pull off sometimes but it’s my effort and Adria is incredible.’

Given that so many of his films have semi-autobiographical elements, the impact of the women in his life influences his films’ perspectives. He explains: ‘I’m blessed that my mom was a very strong, independent woman. My new documentary, God Save Texas on HBO, featured my mom, who passed away almost seven years ago, her legacy and her activism on prison. So I had a strong-minded, independent, cool mom, sisters and grandmothers around me, and I viewed the world through that.’

That respect for the female experience does not only mean that Linklater’s work has led to glittering awards for Patricia Arquette and Julie Delpy, but meant that Arjona – best known for 6 Underground, Morbius and Andor – was integral to building and enriching Madison. Arjona describes how Linklater ‘allows space for the actress to have a voice at the table. I very much was involved with the development of every single scene. When I first got the script, Madison was a skeleton and he allowed me to sit down and create her with him. The women in his films are genuine and honest because it’s coming from them. He gives us a voice, which we don’t necessarily get all the time.’ Arjona remembers being surprised how much agency she was given when ‘the first time he asked me, “Oh, can you write that line on my computer?” I was like, “What?” I’ve never been given that space, and that’s why his female characters really pop.’

Madison also ‘pops’ thanks to Arjona’s wicked comic timing and the emotional weight placed on her devastating backstory that pushes her into hiring who she believes to be a contract killer. But the film requires that dynamic between Gary/Ron and Madison to sizzle. Upon Powell and Arjona’s first meeting, it was clear that the pair had chemistry, with Arjona recalling, ‘We went to lunch and we were both doing Dry January… That lasted about 20 minutes. And we were there having drinks for five hours and Rick kept calling and being like, “Are you guys still there?!” We just hit it off and had so many ideas on bringing this relationship and the complexities to life. Our sober January ended but we started to work from the second we sat down in front of each other.’

But given this was a January after most of the world had just come out of the umpteenth lockdown, it’s more than understandable why a fun five-hour lunch would be tempting. The film itself was born of COVID-19, as Powell says. ‘Rick and I were breaking the story down during the pandemic. No matter where you were in your life, everybody was having sort of the same existential crisis because the pandemic caused you to be stuck with yourself.’ While Powell sat at home, unable to act, hearing about Top Gun: Maverick being delayed yet again, he worked on the Hit Man script and Linklater and he ‘were talking about people picking up a canvas. People tried new hobbies, people got divorced and people found love. I think that is a very interesting feeling that’s in the film. That it’s never too late to become the person that you want to be.’

But once the lockdowns were over, more trouble lay ahead with an actors’ strike, meaning that Powell and Arjona couldn’t attend the film’s glitzy Venice Film Festival premiere and see the jubilant standing ovation that erupted when the credits rolled. Arjona admits to being ‘really jealous’ that TF got to be in attendance as she’s only been able to see the film on her sofa ‘eating chocolates under a blanket with my mom’ and hear reports from Linklater on how much the crowds are loving it. Powell sadly lists missing out on ‘Venice, Toronto, London and New York. I got to finally see it with an audience at Sundance.’ The film was scooped up by Netflix and is now among the most anticipated films of 2024. Hitmen might not be real, but great Richard Linklater movies sure as hell are.

HIT MAN STREAMS ON NETFLIX FROM 7 JUNE.