When you see the words Hit Man, a good number of people instantly think of the bald headed Agent 47 from the video game series. However, this is an entirely different tale to be told by director Richard Linklater in the aftermath of one of his best works, the critically acclaimed Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood. Linklater has secured all the stars for his new piece, an action comedy led by Top Gun: Maverick‘s Glen Powell. Ahead of the project’s premiere at TIFF in September, a new image from the film has been released.
Based on an article written for Texas Monthly by award-winning journalist Skip Hollandsworth, Hit Man tells the story of a cop portrayed by Powell who goes undercover as a hitman in Houston. The gig goes smoothly til Powell‘s character encounters a woman (Adria Arjona) trying to flee an abusive relationship. Now, the undercover cop has to toe the thin line between performing his duty and becoming like the criminals he has devoted his life to stopping. The first image sees Powell in a pair of glasses, giving off the simple yet underlying deadly persona most hitmen would normally prefer.
Asides leading the film along the Andor star, Powell is also attached to the project as a writer alongside Linklater. For the director, the 2001 Texas Monthly magazine article has played a decent role in his career, as this is the second time Linklater would be adapting a story based on the writing. His 2011 crime comedy, Bernie, was the first. Alongide Powell and Arjona, Hit Man‘s supporting cast includes Retta (Parks and Recreation), Austin Amelio (The Walking Dead), and Molly Bernard (Younger).
Good Times for Powell
Powell and Linklater have worked together in the past, with Powell starring in his films Fast Food Nation, Everybody Wants Some!!, and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood. When their next collaboration premieres, it’ll continue what has been a brilliant eighteen months for Powell. In 2022, he was on fire with his role in Top Gun: Maverick, before going on to bring to life the friendship of U.S. Navy fighter pilots Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner in Devotion.
Speaking in an interview with Collider, the actor expressed excitement on getting to work on Hit Man with Linklater: “Rick and I wrote this movie during the pandemic. We came up with it and were noodling with it. It was fun. And then, all of a sudden, we were like, “Oh, this is pretty good.” And then, other people were really excited about it,” he says. “You don’t really believe that it’s happening until, all of a sudden, you’re on set. I was like, “Oh, man, this is going down. We’re making a movie together.”
Hit Man will premiere at TIFF in September.
First look at Glen Powell in Richard Linklater’s ‘HIT MAN.’
The film is described as a “crime comedy thriller about role-play, romance, and the precarious pursuit of self-knowledge.” pic.twitter.com/M76f3lskIs
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) July 24, 2023
via Collider