Hit Man Gives Netflix A Rom-Com That Transcends The Genre
I don’t like smirky, smarmy, overconfident, love ‘em and leave ‘em men in real life, or in the entertainment I choose to consume. Naturally, I was hesitant to watch Hit Man on Netflix after having seen Glen Powell recently in Anyone But You. But, always a sucker for a great rom-com, I decided to check it out, and I’m so glad I did because this movie is not only an excellent representation of its genre, but also does an excellent job of transcending it and turning it into something entirely new.
Abandons The Rom-Com Formula
Hit Man, the new Netflix rom-com, at face value looks to be the same tired story about a guy who pretends to be something he’s not, falls in love with a beautiful girl while pretending, and then there has to be that moment where the truth comes out, she leaves him, and then they reunite. You’ve Got Mail, Hitch, Someone Like You, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days all spring immediately to the front of my mind when I think about the genre.
A Refreshing And Playful Premise
At first, Hit Man does give Netflix viewers this same basic premise. But then, quite quickly, it burns that whole template up and creates something new from its ashes. As we enter the film, we meet Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), a decent looking guy with an almost non-existent personality.
He’s a nerd, but not a Clark Kent type of nerd (I never understood how we’re supposed to believe Henry Cavill was a different person because he had glasses on). No, Gary is a dork who lives alone with his cats and eats cereal at his tiny kitchen table before watering his plants.
From Professor To Fake Assassin
In the beginning of Hit Man on Netflix, we watch Gary head off to work as a philosophy professor at the University of New Orleans while narrating for viewers how he came to moonlight for the New Orleans Police Department. You see, he’s something of a tech nerd, and he helps plant microphones and cameras for sting operations trying to catch people who hire professional killers. The thing is, Gary tells us, there is no such thing as a killer for hire.
People just think they exist.
Before we know it, Gary finds himself having to take on the role of fake hit man. At first he’s afraid, but he quickly begins to enjoy his new job. He researches the kind of hit man each client might expect to find, and he becomes that version of professional assassin.
It’s truly fun to watch Gary transform himself again and again in Hit Man on Netflix, to hear the various stories of the clients, why they want to have this or that person killed, and then to watch them getting their mug shots taken.
Sealed With A Grift
Everything changes when Gary meets Maddy (played by Adria Arjona), a woman afraid of her controlling husband, who wants to have him killed so she can escape. Gary talks Maddy out of the job, and she gets away without getting arrested. It is here that Hit Man on Netflix subverts the rom-com genre.
Gary and Maddy do fall in love, of course, but the story, at its heart, is about identity. Maddy makes choices for her life based on who she thinks Gary is in his role as “Ron” the hit man. And those choices lead to trouble for both of them.
Hit Man Streaming On Netflix
GFR SCORE
Meanwhile, Gary has to contend with the fact that Maddy loves the sleek, laid back, super cool version of him, which he’d love to embody, and hasn’t quite mastered yet. Hit Man brings to Netflix something entirely new, a movie about who we are versus who we want to be, and it asks us to decide whether we’re capable of change.
If there’s a movie that can prove Glen Powell has acting chops, it won’t be this summer’s blockbuster, Twisters, it will be Hit Man on Netflix.
