Hit Man

Hit and Miss Man Look - I wanted to love this, and there's loads about it to love. The various hitman sequences - perfect, there were like 7, but give me more. The tight comic writing - consistently funny, an expected but appreciated turn from Linklater. Glen Powell's performance - reminiscent of Ryan Gosling in his surprising willingness to lean into the campness of the production, for a Hollywood leading man. And there's that stellar, Linklateresque climax built entirely on dialogue. At least, before the predictable bit with the guy whose sub-plot hadn't wrapped up yet. And that's one of my many problems with this, predictability. In spite of Olly's over-dramatic gasping next to me everytime a supposed 'twist' twisted, this plays out beat-for-beat where expected, especially with the old Hollywood manuals of romance and action, written 70 years ago now. There's also the uncomfortable, and unnecessary sexualization of the male lead, but especially the female lead. Mulvey's male gaze is in full effect here, and I feel sorry for Adria Arjona than an otherwise solid performance is sidelined by the male camera, making sections of the film difficult to watch. And there's the edit, which feels lazy and lacklustre, especially near the end, aggressively imploding the film in the name of creating pace. All 3 of these problems are the problems of all Hollywood studio productions, I know, and I expected them to an extent, but I'm dissapointed that they were so prevalent in an established modern auteur's work. I had higher hopes. There's also the more specific problem of Ron, who I'd rather get a root canal than be in the same room with. Don't get me wrong, I know he wasn't supposed to me likable per se, the arc was about recognising the flaws in both Ron id and the Gary superego, but such a Freudian dichotomy seems tacked on and useless to me, as Ron is very clearly a piece of shit next to Gary's awkward angel. If one were to set an Inside Out 3 (tomorrow's review foreshadowing?) in the head of Ron, all 5 emotions would be rabid testosterone. This also meant that, unlike my watching companions, both ready to lick the dirt from under Ron's toenails they loved him that much, that I had increasingly less investment in or sympathy for the character as the stakes rose. I only hoped he'd win in the end so the woman he'd been lying to would be okay too, and she still ended up in a relationship with him, so who's to say. It's by the books Hollywood studio, boringly conformist, and morally questionable, but those kind of films are always going to exist. At least this is a well-written, high-energy, and often likable one.