‘Hit Man’ review: Glen Powell charms as fake assassin flirting with danger — and a client

The majority of trained assassins we see in the movies fall into one of three categories:

Veteran operatives near the end of their careers, e.g., Pierce Brosnan in “Fast Charlie,” Michael Fassbender in “The Killer,” Michael Keaton in “Knox Goes Away,” Liam Neeson in “Memory,” George Clooney in “The American.”Former assassins who are out of the game and trying to live a normal, quiet life — until they’re pulled back in! Keanu Reeves in “John Wick,” Bob Odenkirk in “Nobody,” Mark Wahlberg in “The Family Plan,” et al.Apprentice killers who are just learning the ropes, a la Jennifer Lawrence in “Red Sparrow,” Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill: Volume 2,” Saoirse Ronan in “Hanna,” Anne Parillaud in “La Femme Nikita,” Eva Nguyen Thorsen in “The Protégé,” and yes, it’s curious how the women seem to dominate in this category.

Here’s a fresh take for ya. In Richard Linklater’s offbeat and darkly funny and quite charming “Hit Man,” Glen Powell’s Gary Johnson is a mild-mannered college professor who has an alter ego as a trained assassin for hire — but the twist here is that Gary isn’t an actual killer, he just plays one for the PD. The New Orleans PD. (OK, Warren Beatty played a killer who wasn’t really a killer in “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” in 1971. Different kind of movie. Great movie. But … different kind of movie.)

Glen Powell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater (and has had roles in previous Linklater films including “Fast Food Nation,” “Everybody Wants Some!” and “Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood”), solidifies his bona fide movie-star standing and delivers some of his best work yet. “Hit Man” is loosely based on the life and times of the real Gary Johnson, as told by Skip Hollandsworth in a 2001 article for Texas Monthly. (Another Texas Monthly article by Hollandsworth was the basis for Linklater’s 2011 “Bernie.”)

Powell’s Gary is a lonely, sad-sack philosophy professor who asks his students to consider questions such as, “What if your [identity] is a role you keep playing?” and that’s some foreshadowing right there. Gary drives a Honda Civic (a point of derision, but let me just say I once had a Honda Civic and it lasted FOREVER), has two cats named Id and Ego, and seems to have only one friend: his ex-wife (Molly Bernard), who left Gary because he just didn’t have much passion. (It’s kind of hilarious that everyone considers Gary to be such a dweeb; He gets the matted-down hair, nerd glasses, ill-fitting clothes treatment, as if he’s in the “Before” stages of an ingenue in a 1990s rom-com, but we can see that’s clearly the stunningly handsome and chiseled bro from “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Anyone But You.”)

Gary does have a pretty cool side gig: For the police he provides technical support on wiretap stings in which the rules-flaunting Jasper (Austin Amelio) poses as a hit man to get the goods on a seemingly endless string of locals who want somebody killed. When Jasper is handed a four-month suspension for inappropriate behavior, Gary is pressed into fake hit man duty by his colleagues (Retta and Sanjay Rao, both very funny) — and it turns out he’s a natural. Cue the montage of Gary creating a variety of disguises and alter egos, including a Brit killer who looks and sounds like Tilda Swinton doing one of her chameleonic roles, as he nails one suspect after another. Powell might not be in the Mike Myers/Eddie Murphy class when it comes to adopting various personas, but he’s more than up to the task.

For a meeting with Adria Arjona’s Madison, who is trapped in a dead marriage to an entitled and controlling creep named Ray (Evan Holtzman) and wants him dead, Gary creates the character of Ron, who is steely-eyed, well-dressed, smooth and charming, i.e., he looks like Glen Powell. Finding himself instantly attracted to this scorching-hot femme fatale, Gary talks her out of her plans before she can incriminate herself — and the next thing you know, we’re in a rom-com.

Powell and Arjona have enough explosive chemistry together to reboot “Breaking Bad,” with Madison turned on by the idea of a forbidden romance with a killer, and Gary finding the lines blurred between his real self and Ron. It’s all quite ridiculous and played mostly for laughs, until Madison’s jealous estranged husband Ray and Gary’s resentful colleague Jasper complicate matters on a parallel paths, and we’ll leave it at that.

Austin Amelio as Jasper and Evan Holtzman as Evan both play their characters as if they’re in a hardcore action film; they don’t know they’re in a comedy, which adds to the genuine suspense, as we wonder if our fake hit man might have to resort to real violence to extricate himself from this mess.

With Powell and Arjona sizzling as the most electric romantic pairing of the year so far, “Hit Man” is pure escapist early summer fun.