It feels like we have been waiting forever for Netflix’s upcoming movie Hit Man, and it looks like it’s going to be seriously good! The full-length trailer for the new film starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona has finally been released - and we can’t believe that it is based on a true story!
The director of School of Rock, Richard Linklater, is behind the new project, which stars Glen Powell as “strait-laced professor Gary Johnson”, a professor who moonlights as a fake hitman for the New Orleans Police Department.
The synopsis reads: “Preternaturally gifted at inhabiting different guises and personalities to catch hapless people hoping to bump off their enemies, Gary descends into morally dubious territory when he finds himself attracted to one of those potential criminals, a beautiful young woman named Madison. As Madison falls for one of Gary’s hit man personas — the mysteriously sexy Ron — their steamy affair sets off a chain reaction of play-acting, deception, and escalating stakes.”
The trailer shows the Anyone But You star don a series of different disguises as he meets with a variety of clients, while living a quiet life with two cats the rest of the time.
The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2023, and received an incredible 86 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. Writing for The Daily Beast, Nick Schager wrote: “Hit Man is hot and hilarious, a winning combination amplified by a story that gets knottier at every turn.”
Robbie Collin for The Daily Telegraph added: “Hit Man trips along on great writing, Linklater’s witty, light-touch direction and a rich sense of place, but what makes it especially pleasurable is Powell and Arjona’s naturally steamy rapport.”
The movie is based on the 2001 long-read article Hit Man in Texas Monthly about Gary Johnson, a psychology professor who also worked as a staff investigator for the Harris County district attorney’s office. He would pose as a hitman for dozens of cases and meet with potential ‘clients’ who all wanted to kill someone in their lives, with the article listing everything from disgruntled bosses wanting to have an employee fired to warring spouses.
Speaking about Gary at the time, Houston lawyer Michael Hinton said: “He’s the perfect chameleon. Gary is a truly great performer who can turn into whatever he needs to be in whatever situation he finds himself.
“He never gets flustered, and he never says the wrong thing. He’s somehow able to persuade people who are rich and not so rich, successful and not so successful, that he’s the real thing. He fools them every time.”
Glen opened up about wanting to play the role, telling The Wrap: “[Gary] was so compelling when he was on the mic, when he was in front of people…and then he would go home and he’d be with his cats. What an interesting thing to have this duality. And it was that duality that sprung the thought behind this movie.”