HIT MAN (2023)

Little question Glen Powell is having something of a moment right now.  After stealing all his scenes as a studly hotshot flyboy in TOP GUN: MAVERICK/’22, he’s now being credited with saving the traditional big screen rom-com in ANYONE BUT YOU/’23 (hands please if you bailed at the meet-cute) and now this decidedly better, off-kilter rom-com.  With its reality suggested plot (emphasis on ‘suggested’), it takes writer/director Richard Linklater back in tone & technique to BERNIE (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/02/bernie-2011.html) and also, like BERNIE (and too many Linklater films), starts to feel a bit thin.  Something I think Linklater is aware of.  Here, inventing an extra plotline untethered to actuality, veering disastrously dark (which is fine) and insultingly cynical (which ain’t).  Like sentimentality & tears, cynicism can also be unearned.  Powell, embracing his inner John Ritter*, is a New Orleans University prof. (deglammed with flattened hair given a matte finish) who finds an outlet for his recessive wild side jobbing with the local police as an undercover aide who poses as hit man for hire to various putative clients.  (Watch for the scene stealing ‘Retta’ as a police partner.)  Naturally, this being a rom-com at heart, Powell falls for one of his targets (Adria Arjona - more femme fatale than screwball mate*), convinces her not to go thru with the hit, then sees complications spin out of control.  Something of a disappointment then.  But with no more than a token theatrical release, it’s tough to know what kind of theatrical pull Powell is generating.  Especially since his next big ticket item, TWISTERS/’24, is hardly actor driven.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Not tv’s THREE’S COMPANY John Ritter, but the slyly gifted actor Blake Edwards & Peter Bogdanovich saw in him.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *More like Screwy Editing of the Day.  Powell/Arjona's meet-cute very oddly edited (both rhythm & angles; why the overhead shot?), especially as it begs to be played in a one-take/two-shot.  Makes you wonder if the actors couldn’t pull it off.