PROFESSIONAL KILLERS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS
There's a certain amount of tangential exposition one expects from a Richard Linklater joint, and a penchant for true stories like 2011's Bernie. After 2014's Boyhood didn't turn out to be an Oscar (TM)(R)(C) sweeper like everyone had hoped (Patricia Arquette won for her role as the mother... who's Zero now, bitches?), Linklater got lost in the woods a little bit... until now. Much like Woody Allen's career rejuvenation after Match Point, Linklater makes a triumphant return in his own unique way with Hit Man, the mostly true story of Gary Johnson, a part-time college professor and part-timer for his local police department. He's a professor of psychology and philosophy... much like the best auteurs! Well, we start off early with a bold statement, indeed: the beloved hit man of Hollywood is just that. A Hollywood fairy tale. Forget those ads in "Soldier of Fortune" magazine. I heard the latest trend is for the hit men to just keep the money and not even do the job! The ultimate next step, really... no manager to go to with a receipt, am I right?
The plot has about as many twists and turns in it as a Coen brothers movie, but is still not immune to the charms of the standard Hollywood construct. At one point (near the beginning), fate steps in and Gary has to fill in to play the role of the contract killer for hire. But he's been more or less preparing for this moment for his whole part-time police career, listening in on wiretaps and what not. We meet a few of the future arrestees seeking a contract killer's services, and Gary makes the occasional court appearance. After a while, he really takes to his new found role, which now includes costume changes and some prosthetic-type makeup, mostly scars. The homage to Patrick Bateman was priceless. BUT THEN... he meets his match. And he falls in love. Naturally, things get complicated from there, and Gary's love interest doesn't seem to be short on ulterior motives! I'll try not to spoil the plot surprises any further... but I will say that credulity does get strained. There's one scene involving a quite unique use for a SmartPhone (C)(TM)(R)... then again, a similar, more subtle thing happened in The Departed. It sort of goes back to Shattered Glass and the fact that "The New Republic" doesn't use photographs. Let me just say that I, for one, would not be able to think on my feet so fast.
So, even though Hit Man is about a hit man playing pretend, we do get one dead body during the proceedings. I don't think I'm spoiling things by saying that the ending of the film is a happy one, but I might be by pointing out the dark foundation the happy ending is laid upon. It's almost exactly like a similar scene in Suburbicon... I would've said "Spoiler Alert," but nobody saw that one.
The (male) star of the picture, Glen Powell, seems like an overnight success, but he started collaborating with Linklater many moons ago on Fast Food Nation. Despite the rather direct trip we take to the slaughterhouse in that one, alas... the masses' hunger for fast food seems to be stronger than ever. But hey... at least now we have those Impossible Burgers (C)(TM)(R), right?
***1/2
ASSASSIN'S CREED
In the movies, traditionally, the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Assassins were on the Bad Guy team, and usually had to face justice at some point. The first example I can think of where the hired killer gets to live is the Max von Sydow character in 1975's Three Days of the Condor, which is a drama. For comedy, there's the 1983 film The Survivors, where Jerry Reed's character eventually gives up his need for revenge... of course, that might just be a fluke in the editing. Time marched on, and eventually John Cusack, one of American cinema's best friends ever, gave us Grosse Pointe Blank, or what might have happened to Lloyd Dobler if he met the wrong people at the kickboxing ring. Cut to 2023, where the cinematic marketplace is so awash in stories of assassins in particular, and bad people seeking redemption in general, that David Fincher's The Killer, a Netflix (TM)(R)(C) exclusive, kind of seems like another day at the office, but with slightly different locations. One of the locations is New Orleans, where Hit Man was filmed in its entirety. I will say that the opening credit sequence seemed a little bit rushed, but whatever. One way to guarantee repeat viewings, right?
I believe the hot phrase these days is "fan service," as in, does a movie give the viewer what they want? If a movie is a fast food meal, and a few of them are... does the movie get the proper proportions of burgers and fries? Too many fries for the rubes? Not enough burger for the critics? ...I must be hungry again. For fans of dinosaurs, Jurassic Park is big on fan service. For fans of Batman's most flamboyant villain, Joker: Folie à Deux does NOT deliver fan service. Apparently, to anyone at all except the director! In the instant case, Fincher and star Michael Fassbender delivers the goods, even if we've seen this plot at least once before. Spoiler alert: isn't it a bit like "The Bourne Identity" series, but with a smaller hierarchy to dispense with? Sorry... SPOILER ALERT.
So, what can I spoil and get away with? I'm going to take a cue from the top review, and say that the plot construction is, of course, top notch, along with everything else about the movie. We have a perfectly lovely introduction to the character, and a lot of small details... I have to say, though. The guy's in Paris, and the only place he goes to eat is McDonald's (TM)(C)(R)? Seems like a bit of a waste to me. You're telling me Whole Foods (C)(R)(TM) hasn't opened a branch there yet? For those of you considering a career in professional killing, well... it's still like Tom Petty said: the waiting is the hardest part. The other reviewer talked about what happens next, so I'll do the same. As with most films, we get a sense of the characters' routine, WHEN SUDDENLY... the routine changes forever! Sometimes it occupies the rest of the movie, as in 2002's Minority Report. Here... how to not ruin it? The killer finally gets a chance to take the shot, but boom. There's a mishap, and a semi-innocent bystander in the room gets killed instead. As I said earlier, I've seen way too many of these things, so naturally I thought to myself... hmm! Seems like he was using such a high-caliber bullet that he would've hit his target anyway, but... whatever. Surprised, the killer tries to quickly reload, but it's too late. Security guards look across the way, see the open window, but the killer's too far away to identify. The curtains are closed, literally and metaphorically, and as Edward Norton said in Rounders, it's road time! I originally watched this when it was first released, and there was an instance of great timing, because the hot company that week was "WeWork."
And so, once his getaway is made clean, it's revenge time. The killer has a seemingly endless supply of fake aliases. Thank goodness the various people he deals with aren't terribly Pop Culture savvy! "Archibald Bunker" is probably the most flagrant, and he also uses the two main ones from The Odd Couple. Which is strange to me because the film itself uses a construct from another Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau: the book-like chapters of The Fortune Cookie. If I remember correctly, the chapters are the various towns the killer has to visit to complete his revenge quest. One of his stops has the best fight sequence... maybe not the best of all moviedom, but it's up there, and it gives the film's composer and Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor a chance to make the soundtrack psychologically correct... current, anyway. The killer is a bit like Jesse Eisenberg's protagonist in the Zombieland movies: a guy who lives by a set of rules. Tries to, anyway. Just enough rules to make life worth living. Well, I've already devoted more words to this one, so let me just wrap up by saying that usually David Fincher has got some kind of larger point to make in his movies. SPOILER ALERT: this time it seems to be that this cold-blooded, very physically fit professional assassin isn't really so different from anybody else, as he thinks to himself at the end. And maybe that's true. I only saw a little bit of that Red Dawn remake, and I couldn't help but think to myself... did these kids just get out of the Army? Oh, and not killing the very wealthy guy who ordered the hit in the first place... well, I guess that wasn't the part of the plan. I mean, the guy's an assassin, but he's not crazy!
***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan
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