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With this new movie Richard Linklater seemed to be adding to his already eclectic filmography with an Out of Sight style crime thriller where two beautiful people on opposite sides of the law get mixed up in a passionate love affair, testing each’s ethical code and personal principles.

This is not what Hit Man is though. It’s what it wants to be but it’s not what it is.

In the end this story of a civilian who poses as an assassin to help the police trap people looking to have someone killed just doesn’t have enough depth. The drama comes when the protagonist Gary starts seeing a woman who he meets because she wanted to off her husband but it never really digs into the psychology of either character. Again it certainly tries to, there is a whole thread exploring how someone’s personality can change which makes the end (a denouement that some viewers have had trouble with) neatly inevitable, yet it never really goes beyond a surface presentation of its themes and issues.

What this movie does handle well though is how it places itself in the sub genre in which it very consciously exists. Linklater and star and co-writer Glen Powell are aiming their sights on the whole Hollywood idea of the hired gun and if they don’t take it down completely, they do get in some good shots. The film to some extent, and the publicity to a greater one, confidently pushes the idea that hit men are actually a cinematic myth. I’m sure real figures like Elmer Burke, Glennon Engleman, Ilpo Larha and Charles ‘father of Woody’ Harrelson might have had something to say about that (although probably not) but certainly the unrealistic Hollywood construction of such trigger men is nicely lampooned here. When meeting ‘clients’ Gary Johnson, himself based loosely on a genuine person, decides to present himself as different types of men each based on some movie stereotype or other which highlights the silliness of this in other films.

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In fact these exaggerated disguises pretty much set the tone for the whole thing, which takes away any edge but is enjoyable. Glen Powell and Adria Arjona are both charismatic and likeable in the lead roles and the story is compelling, if a little under written. The 15 certificate suggests a darker movie than we ultimately get but presumably it is the sex scenes that have earned it the higher classification, even though these aren’t that extreme either.

Go in without expectations and you should have a good time with this. It might just be more Nancy Drew than John Wick, but it’s fun.

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The Ripley Factor:

Again, there was every opportunity here for Adria Arjona’s Madison to be the classic formidable and unreadable femme fatale here, but this in itself is a not entirely progressive trope so maybe better that she’s not. As it is she is a woman who takes action to release herself from an abusive relationship and finds new agency so there is positivity here even if her character could have been more developed.