This is not a redux of “The Killer.”
Despite its title, the new film is actually all about how hitmen aren’t real.
One of the coolest character archetypes in cinema is that of the professional assassin.
Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in ‘Hit Man’.Brian Roedel / Courtesy of Netflix
But the thing is…these kinds of people are not real.
Thats what separatesRichard Linklaters new movie fromThe Killerand others like it.
Despite its title,Hit Manis a film that knows hitmen are fake.
The film will first screen at the Sundance Film Festival as a Spotlight Premiere tonight.
Hit Manis based ona 2001Texas Monthlyarticleby Skip Hollandsworth, whose journalism previously inspired another Linklater movie,Bernie.
Thats the closest that reality ever comes to a hitman scenario.
I asked Skip, Is it true?
That was 2001, so I have followed really closely over the years.
But no one ever figures out from there that hitmen don’t exist.
Linklater remembers when his film first premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Isn’t that funny?"
Powell has worked with Linklater multiple times now.
!and a cameo voiceover appearance in 2022’s animatedApollo 10 12: A Space Age Childhood.
Once they had that starting point, they broke the story together.
“It turns out she was actually in danger, and Gary befriended her.
So I told Rick, I think that’s the movie.
Let’s follow that breadcrumb trail.
We meet her at such a weak point, Arjona says of Madison.
She chooses to reinvent herself through this guy.
Whatever he finds cool, she finds cool.
Whatever he likes, she likes.
Thats her way of becoming another person and burying the person that she was with her ex.
But it was a really cool process.”
Watch the first trailer above.
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