Hit Man (2023)

Synopsis

Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a psychology prof at a New Orleans college, a nondescript guy living a nondescript life. He gives intriguing and challenging lectures, but he’s no Indiana Jones; there are no young ladies in the front row giving him The Look.

But Gary’s leading a secret life. He’s also an IT contractor for the New Orleans police department, content to be doing electronic surveillance inconspicuously in a van while an undercover cop pretending to be a hit man lures would-be clients into incriminating themselves. But then the thing happens. You know, the unexpected thing that has to happen to every nondescript guy in a comedy. Unexpectedly, he’s drafted to fill in for undercover guy Jasper (Austin Amelio), who’s been suspended for bad behavior.

And guess what: turns out Gary’s got a knack for playacting as a hit man.

Gary, affecting various oddball personas, begins to rack up a track record of consistently fooling would-be clients into saying just the right incriminating thing. But then in his favorite persona, “Hit Man Ron,” he encounters Madison Masters (Adria Arjona) and, out of sympathy for her plight with an abusive husband, he lets her off the hook by talking her out of hiring him to off the guy.

Months later, Gary is hanging out as Hit Man Ron when who should happen by: Madison. And now things get interesting as Gary can’t help impersonating Ron in order to keep up what he knows is an inappropriate relationship with Madison.

And what starts as a quirky comedy leans a bit toward dark comedy: One lie leads to a complication that leads to another lie that leads to another complication as Gary/Ron engages in a game of cat and mouse with Jasper, who seems to know exactly what’s going on.

See It

Most lectures by nondescript college profs are boring and even nonsensical, serving only to underline the prof’s nondescriptness. So too most dialog. But pay attention. The lectures and a lot of the dialog (especially an early conversation between Gary and his ex-wife) are cleverly embedded with ruminations on morality, relationships, and the ability (or not) of humans to reinvent themselves.

Also worth paying attention to is Powell, who is thoroughly charming and downright easy to watch in each of his personas and, eventually, as the new person he becomes.

Will you approve of the ending? Well, watch a second time and pay even closer attention to those lectures.