A fun trope of contract killers in movies is the stealthy way the assassin moves about in plain sight while under the guise of another person. This is the trope that Glen Powell‘s new Netflix film, Hit Man, plays on. Powell and Richard Linklater wrote the film, which was inspired by an unbelievable true story. Our own Chris Bumbray felt ecstatic about this movie in his film review from the Toronto International Film Festival, saying, “Notably, despite being a movie about killing, the film is pretty non-violent and charming. If there was ever a feel-good movie to be made about murder-for-hire, this is it.” You can read the rest of his review HERE.
Netflix has just released the new trailer for the comedy. The synopsis of the film reads,
“A mild-mannered psychology professor (Glen Powell) interested in electronics takes a sideline bugging undercover cops in sting operations, specializing in setting up phony hits. When the usual undercover guy is suspended, he’s enlisted to pose as a hitman. He turns out to be a natural at undercover work, with the police using him to entrap people taking out contracts. Things get complicated when he falls for an abused wife (Adria Arjona) wanting to take out her husband.” The film also stars Austin Amelio, Retta, Sanjay Rao, Molly Bernard and Evan Holtzman.
Linklater would talk about the importance of the numerous false personas that Powell’s character embody in the movie, “I think that’s an attribute of the movie — it’s about a lot of things. It’s about identity and self and passion. But on a plot level, it’s just a guy who gets in a little too deep. His passions lead him in a direction where he’s deceiving someone he’s in love with, and being someone else. They have to deal with those repercussions.”
Arjona spoke about how she and Powell discovered their chemistry, which was central to the film, “I met Rick on Zoom first, and then he set it up where I went out and met Glen, and we ended up talking for about four hours. We were both doing Sober January, and an hour into our dinner, we were both cutting loose, drinking tequila, and celebrating the fact that we were going to do this movie together.” And Powell would add, “Sitting down with Adria the first time, it felt like the best first date, but also like I’d known her forever.”
Hit Man is set to premiere on Netflix in select countries on Friday, June 7, after a limited theatrical release.