Hit Man movie storyline. Inspired by an unbelievable true story, a straight-laced professor discovers he has a hidden talent as a fake hit man. He meets his match in a client who steals his heart and ignites a powder keg of deception, delight, and mixed-up identities.
Gary begins assuming false identities to entrap criminals for the local police, but the situation quickly changes. “I think that’s an attribute of the movie — it’s about a lot of things,” Linklater said. “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.”
For Powell and Arjona, chemistry came easy. “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,” Arjona told Netflix. “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.”
Hit Man is a 2023 American romantic black comedy film produced and directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Glen Powell, based on the 2001 Texas Monthly magazine article of the same name by Skip Hollandsworth. The film stars Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, and Retta, and follows an undercover New Orleans police contractor who poses as a reliable hitman as he tries to save a woman in need.
Before the 2022 Cannes Film Market, Hit Man was announced as a new film for sale internationally. The screenplay was based on “Hit Man”, a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth, and written by Richard Linklater and Glen Powell, who would also direct and star, respectively. Adria Arjona would also star. AGC Studios reported strong sales for international distribution at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. Powell was joined by Austin Amelio, Retta, and Molly Bernard in October 2022. Filming began in New Orleans in October 2022, and production was completed that November.
Hit Man premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2023, and was released in select theaters in the United States on May 24, 2024, before its streaming debut by Netflix on June 7. It was followed afterward by its North American premiere on September 11 at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Who’s in the cast of Hit Man?
Powell plays mild-mannered college professor Gary Johnson — and his devil-may-care hit man alter ego, Ron. Arjona (Andor, Triple Frontier) plays Madison, who tries to hire Ron and then becomes romantically entangled with him. Along for the ride are Austin Amelio (The Walking Dead, Everybody Wants Some!!), Retta (Parks and Recreation, Good Girls), Sanjay Rao (The Flight Attendant), Molly Bernard (Chicago Med, Younger), and Evan Holtzman (Hidden Figures).
“[Glen] is a great collaborator,” Linklater said about his leading man and co-writer. The two first worked together when Powell was a teen actor in Linklater’s Fast Food Nation; they reunited on Everybody Wants Some!! and Apollo 10 ½ before writing Hit Man together. “It’s kind of like the sports team: If the best guy on the team is also the hardest working, you might win… That’s what Glen is. He wants everybody on the team to be great.”
Both Powell and Linklater say the writing process brought out the best in each other. “I always bring the script to the actors and make revisions during the rehearsal process, but with this one, we wrote it during the pandemic and had plenty of time,” Linklater says. “We were talking almost every day, and at one point, I said, ‘Let’s save a step and just write this thing together.’ ”
For Powell, writing a screenplay with his longtime collaborator was a lifelong dream. “When I was 14, I worked with Rick for the first time,” Powell said. “And at that point, I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, he’s one of the greats. I’m getting to be on a film set, a Richard Linklater film set.’ And now it’s 20 years later, and I look at Rick the same way. I just pinch myself every day that I get to be here.”
Arjona, meanwhile, was the key to the romance at the core of the film. “Casting Madison was the crucial moment,” Linklater said. “It had to be someone a guy would risk everything they’ve worked for to be with. And yet, she had to be very sympathetic. Ultimately, what we were asking her to do is just be a real person.”
“Madison’s intentions in this movie are not exactly clear, and that’s one of the reasons why I love her so much,” Arjona said about diving into the role. “There’s an energy about Madison that is kind of contagious, erratic, and spontaneous. I’ve never played a character like that.”
Glen Powell as Ron in ‘Hit Man’
Adria Arjona as Maddy Masters in ‘Hit Man’
Glen Powell as Gary in ‘Hit Man’
Hit Man (2024)
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, Retta as Claudette, Sanjay Rao, Evan Holtzman, Molly Bernard, Evan Holtzman, Eleanor T. Threatt, Kim Baptiste, Nathalie J. Alarcon
Screenplay by: Richard Linklater, Glen Powell
Production Design by: Bruce Curtis
Cinematography by: Shane F. Kelly
Film Editing by: Sandra Adair
Costume Design by: Juliana Hoffpauir
Set Decoration by: Markus Wittmann
Art Direction by: Rodney Becker
Music by: Graham Reynolds
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, sexual content and some violence.
Distributed by: Netflix
Release Date: September 5, 2023 (Venice), May 24, 2024 (United States), June 7, 2024 (Netflix)
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