RICHARD LINKLATER

Search me though how what the cops were doing in this, and what the guy it's based on was doing, was not always entrapment and what possible usefulness it could have. Something to take up with the US legal system rather than Linklater.

Linklater actually brings this up in that interview, and it was an aspect to the whole story that troubled him, especially coming on the heels of that prison doc (which he finished filming before he started production on Hit Man). It was definitely something he wanted audiences to think.

The film moves briskly and can seem frothy in tone, but I think it's morally complicated and very unsettling underneath the surface. One thing that caught me off guard was how a few critics were angered by the ending, with one going as far as calling it "amoral." Pretty sure Linklater knew exactly what he was doing and the ending was deceptively a happy resolution.

I just started watching this last night and it's great. The first 5 minutes hint at some kind of semi-silly fantastic plot, but then the next 40 minutes are just richly detailed sociological depiction of life as a 10-year old boy in a new-development outer suburb of Houston around 1969. As a Gen-Xer I'm a few years later, but I can definitely relate to a lot of this.

I think this is something most adults can relate to, even if they weren't part of that era. Every generation has had a similar dynamic play out where you have these shared cultural experiences, not just within the community but across the country. It may be something most people take for granted, and it may be less potent now due to the internet and social media greatly diminishing any sense of distance or cultural isolation, but in hindsight there's something pretty awesome about a film, a record or some sociological trend making its way through an entire culture and leaving a lasting impression on everyone.

Yes, among other things it captured something of the monolithic dominance of network television in the imaginative life of a young person in those days, and the way all of its little quirks and oddities became known by heart.

It’s also good on how TV as a central cultural medium tended to cultivate the formation of rituals. Participation required conforming to a predetermined schedule.

Hit Men was sound, solid.

yeah, i didnt think it was all it was cracked up to be but it was funnand solid

i enjoyed just how evil she was pretty much throughout, the idea it "got dark" at the end is....weird

The “thank you” bag was hilarious

This film reminded me a bit of Grosse Pointe Blank! Not as overtly comedic as that was, but felt tonally similar.

Pretty sure Linklater knew exactly what he was doing and the ending was deceptively a happy resolution.

Deceptive as in it doesn't actually end happily for them? Or it does and since they are bad people that isn't a happy ending?

My viewing was influenced by the Sight&Sound interview Linklater gave, where he said something along the lines of "people are complicated, people make mistakes, I like to give them a break", and so I guess I took the ending at face value - I feel like the movie wants us to be on the protagonist's side, to root for the relationship and to be happy it worked out. In real life this would indeed be amoral asthey killed two people but this is movie magic and I don't mind being seduced into rooting for a couple of murderers.

Of course it helps that both the people they kill are awful. I enjoyed the film without loving it. There are some awkwardnesses in its conception and execution, but Powell and Arjona are very likable.

I don't think it brought off the amorality; it either chickened out or Linklater didn't know how to, pun intended, execute it.

At first I was annoyed by how little character development Adria Arjona got after her first excellent scene. She just seemed to hang around being very attractive. But then I realized that she's the encapsulation of his speech to his students to decide who they want to be and then passionately pursue being that person. She wanted to be happily married to some guy who was prepared to kill for her, and she got that. I still thought the whole film was only OK. I don't agree with the idea that everyone should write like Elmore Leonard all the time, but feel like this is the kind of film that could have done with a bit more of an Elmore Leonard vibe.

the real story is quite a read:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/hit-man-2/

I forgot it was based on a true story and kept expecting twist after twist but it was all very straightforward and predictable, but likeable enough

I can't get the spoiler tags to work, so look away if you haven't seen this film!

xps What Gary and Maddy achieve is the ultimate goal so many of the film's supporting characters had when they tried to carry out their ridiculous but horrendous fantasies of having someone wiped out of existence - to have their lives completely fulfilled once they were free of the one obstacle (or two) to their happiness. It's pro forma for a "moral" film not to have this happen, to have a reckoning, to show how impossible it would be for its characters to realize this, etc., and sometimes you have something like "Crimes and Misdemeanors" where it's allowed to happen at the service of a dark view of the world, but I think what Linklater pulls off is trickier and very much apiece with his warmer and optimistic view of the world. He shows the complete realization of that dark fantasy, but I also believe he trusts the audience to feel put off by the implications, to also see it as a complete fairy tale that could never happen this way even as we're seeing it play out as the "happy ending." I saw this film in a packed theater and got the impression everyone around me felt a little gross (and amused) by those final scenes, but I think that's EXACTLY how it's supposed to play.

This feels apiece with "Bernie" in this respect, though with the earlier film we're not dealing with a fabrication inserted into a real-life story, that aspect of the story really did happen.

I mean, to what degree is the film presumed to be on their side? I think it’s as much an interrogation of the romcom as an endorsement of it.

Absolutely. The movie more or less presents itself as a form film theory and criticism in the first act, then keeps developing those ideas as it progresses.

Upthread the idea of entrapment was suggested, but think about the moral (not legal) implications of that and what it says about people - then tie that to what the film says about hit man movies (after claiming it's a Hollywood invention while showing how Gary uses familiar movie references to gain people's trust). For me at least, it was pretty fascinating to see how those ideas were explored over the course of the movie.

The most telling moment may be the married couple we see in court. Linklater alludes this in the Film Stage interview, but when that moment played out, my first impulse was more or less "the husband's a sucker. His wife tried to have him killed." But look how it plays out afterwards, culminating in that look they give to Gary. There's no getting around she did try to have her husband killed, but at the same time I'm kind of left feeling there's a lot that I don't grasp about this couple, especially if you can frame their case truthfully as entrapment. The split between what's taken from real life and what's complete fiction is interesting to me because on some level it played like a film within a film - from the moral observations Linklater and Powell make about the real-life Gary Johnson, the nature of his work and the people he encounters (all of which we see dramatized), Linklater and Powell explore the questions that arise through a hypothetical story which turns out to be the romantic comedy between Gary and Maddy.

*after claiming hit men are a Hollywood invention

Before this vanishes from my head tomorrow morning and then forever...

I went in with low expectations--based on the trailer, based on Dazed and Confused/School of Rock/Boyhood being long ago (and Everybody Wants Some not)--so not bad.

What I liked: Adria Arjona--never seen her before.

What I loved: "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" (twice)--what a great, largely forgotten song. Thought I was hearing the Sound Orchestral hit, but looks like it's Allen Toussaint.

What I didn't like: my second Glen Powell movie (see above)--don't like him at all. Switch him up with somebody I do and I'd probably give this a 7.0

Better films that crossed my mind: Double Indemnity (obviously), To Die For, Blood Simple. Must be dozens. I enjoyed the reminders.

Better crafted on technical level, but the latter two have enough shortcomings that I would never call them better, especially Blood Simple which came off worse every time I saw it. I don't think I could revisit it again, but I'd probably revisit To Die For.

They're both highly stylized movie concoctions, but for me, clearly superior.

Honestly, Blood Simple just feels even more empty and contemptuous when I put it next to Hit Man and To Die For. I like some of the Coens' films much more than others, but Blood Simple isn't one of the better ones.

Adria Arjona--never seen her before.

She was great in Good Omens as Anathema Device!

I lied--she was in six episodes of the Vince Vaughn True Detective season (Emily). No recollection.

i thought powell was fine in it - if anything, the brief moments when he played the hitman characters struck me more as a self-indulgent "look at my potential range, hollywood" that i'd imagine any performer would relish getting a chance to do in a single production and pull off.

Having rewatched Blood Simple recently, in no fucking universe is Hit Man on the level of Blood Simple.

I mean one has M Emmett Walsh playing one of the seediest men ever, the other has sitcom-level cops doing stale jokes.

I did enjoy the actor playing Jasper - knew his lane and stayed in it with aplomb.

M Emmett Walsh was a great actor and he nailed what he was given, but every time I watched that film I was put off more and more by how nasty it came off. I know the movie has its fans, but it just left me feeling emptier each time out.

Part of it is that it's come to the point where craft and style now has its limits when I see a movie. The Coens are great storytellers, they're often hilarious, they're visually inventive, and that's a big reason why I see everything they do. It's probably a big reason why I voluntarily watched Blood Simple multiple times over the years. But I'm valuing what a filmmaker has to say more and more - how are they viewing the world, what are they asking about it, and the dialogue they're essentially creating with the viewer. In the beginning, Linklater didn't grab me as much as his contemporaries, but over time he's come out ahead for me, partly as someone with the kind of curiosity one would have when they’re seriously interested in people and how they think and act in life. Once in a while I'll think about the reasons a filmmaker would create what I'm seeing, or think about the kind of view they would have on life or the world to create such a thing - the answers can be good or bad or even unresolved, but it often seems valid when I'm trying to engage with what they're saying. Linklater's films aren't always perfect, but they do a lot more than others in getting me to look at or examine life in a different way.

Was Maddy a real person or a composite? I ask because, though not nearly as egregious as American Graffiti's coda, I felt a twinge of unfairness in making Hit Man's coda entirely about Johnson. But if she's fictionalized, that's all you can really do.

i thought powell was fine in it - if anything, the brief moments when he played the hitman characters struck me more as a self-indulgent "look at my potential range, hollywood" that i'd imagine any performer would relish getting a chance to do in a single production and pull off.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Tuesday, 11 June 2024 04:20 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

felt exactly the opposite

his limits were never more exposed than at any stage we might have to believe the paper thin character under the hit men

he was tbh quite annoying as this guy

A friend pointed out to me yesterday, when I told them that Glen Powell feels like a scam thought up by Hollywood bizzers who think millennials and Gen Z don’t understand sex appeal or get enough sex, that Powell is a psyop.

he actually had four eyes in this role, so uh no

I did not feel sickly or partic troubled, have rooted for far more morally compromised characters in the past. Did feel "none of this would go down like this in real life", but that's what I think every time I watch a romantic comedy?

Aside from Ron I don't feel like there were any moments where we had to believe in any of the characters Gary makes up, they are designed as OTT caricatures and we're meant to think "haw, these rubes are really falling for it" more than we are supposed to marvel at the transformation imo.

I did enjoy the actor playing Jasper - knew his lane and stayed in it with aplomb.

Yeah, he was great. Stole every scene he was in, imo.

when I told them that Glen Powell feels like a scam

He's Tom Cruise approved, and probably cheaper than a lot of other leading men, for a little while, anyway. Grateful to be working, by the sounds of it, and happy to generate his own projects as well. And he was never a child star, so we don't all look at him as if he's kind of a perpetual baby. I feel like all these things are working in his favour. But I agree that I don't get it. He does nothing for me at all. I mean, I've nothing against him, he seems like a perfectly nice man, but really? This is The Hot Guy?

I liked glen powell as tilda Swinton

Tilda Swinton could totally play Glen Powell.

Josh O'Connell should play every Hot Guy imo

*O'Connor too!

My wife says Powell reminds her intensely of some other performer but she can't think who. I get that especially from his smirk, feels very familiar but can't place it.

It's that smirk I can't stand. Was his British guy specifically an Alan Cumming parody? I had just finished rewatching Battle of the Sexes so maybe the proximity gave me that impression.

He was, I should point out, pure scuzzy charm in Everybody Wants Some!!.

glen powell reminds me of george w bush somehow

about halfway through i thought he was drawing from the matthew mcconaughey well which would make sense given his similar texas/linklater background.

xps Aidan Gillen maybe?

i see it

His eyes seem too small for his face?

The little American Psycho impression was good, I assume all the characters were movie references but didn't catch them all.

Powell looks like a conventionally handsome person seen in a funhouse mirror, face stretched strangely long. I watched Hit Man last night and thought..."ehh, ok..."

A friend pointed out to me yesterday, when I told them that Glen Powell feels like a scam thought up by Hollywood bizzers who think millennials and Gen Z don’t understand sex appeal or get enough sex, that Powell is a psyop.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 11, 2024 5:33 AM bookmarkflaglink

he actually had four eyes in this role, so uh no

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Tuesday, June 11, 2024 6:09 AM bookmarkflaglink

lmao

Was Maddy a real person or a composite? I ask because, though not nearly as egregious as American Graffiti's coda, I felt a twinge of unfairness in making Hit Man's coda entirely about Johnson. But if she's fictionalized, that's all you can really do.

That character and story was complete fiction. There was a woman he was sympathetic to who wanted her husband killed, but it's only a superficial resemblance. She went through with "the deal" at their one meeting even though she actually had no money, and when she was put on trial, Johnson testified for leniency, but the jury was unmoved and sentenced her to 80 years in prison. (And nothing remotely like a romance happened between two.)

I did not feel sickly or partic troubled, have rooted for far more morally compromised characters in the past. Did feel "none of this would go down like this in real life", but that's what I think every time I watch a romantic comedy?

As I mentioned before, what I found potent about this film is what it says about real life and the whole fictional romance is commenting on the real life elements that are shown in the other half of the film. It's not just about "hey none of this would happen in real life" because that becomes irrelevant if you're talking about a romantic comedy that's focused on creating a fantasy - that's to the case here. You can see it in Linklater's interviews where he's really focused on the implications of [real life] Gary's work and the people he meets, and that's what makes this movie for me.

There's arguably a whole other discussion about rooting for far more morally compromised characters, but that could take forever and put a long line of characters under a microscope. (It would probably even encompass what you mean by "rooting" - even that could be complicated, especially with a film like Psycho where Hitchcock actually examines the audience's allegiances in terms of who they're "rooting" for and how that can change.)

As for the characters Gary makes up, a lot of them aren't done with the greatest finesse, but much more important for me was what they were alluding to: movies. As I said, the film is a piece of film criticism, and those moments help establish what these people are buying into. It's done broadly, yes, but it's a salient point about how these dark fantasies about killing someone (in real life) are reflected in what people may see (or even want to see) in movies. It probably goes back to your original point about "rooting" for morally compromised people.

*that's not the case here