Entertainment journalists are oftentimes a truly insufferable lot. Case in point, consider Netflix’s new movie Hit Man, starring Glen Powell as a geek posing as a contract killer in a screwball, noir comedy from director Richard Linklater. This crowd-pleaser, which hits the streaming giant on Friday (June 7), has earned near-universal praise from everyone who’s seen it so far; its critics’ and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, for example, currently stand at an almost-perfect 97% and 95%, respectively (a truly rare sight for a Netflix movie).
It’s got a fantastic director, a talented cast, a romance involving a geek-turned-fake-hit-man — what’s not to like? Well, if you get paid to opine for a living, it turns out there’s always something not to like.
In this case, it’s the fact that Hit Man won’t be coming to a theater near you. Darn you, Netflix! “The entertaining and highly acclaimed Glen Powell thriller is the latest potential hit movie that Netflix has taken off the table,” a Variety piece lamented just a few days ago. “When Hit Man starts streaming … the buzz that surrounds it, the avid hum of what we used to call ‘the conversation,’ is going to be…zero. Nada. Crickets. It’s going to be a movie falling in the forest and not making a sound.”
Apparently, we’re supposed to be miffed about the release of Hit Man because Netflix has taken such a my-way-or-the-highway approach when it comes to theatrical distribution. “Netflix acquires Hit Man for $20 million so they can throw it down a hole nobody will ever see,” laments a Reddit thread from a few months ago. I don’t know, though; you could always just … stream Hit Man on Netflix, and then continue living your life as you look for something real to complain about? I feel like that’s another option here.
At least by streaming it on Netflix, I don’t have to pay for a movie ticket that costs more than a family of four’s restaurant meal. Or deal with idiots sitting nearby in the theater who won’t shut up throughout the movie. Or put my car at risk of being broken into in the war zone of my hometown.
Co-written by and starring Powell, Hit Man finds the leading man once again charming his way through a relationship movie (fresh off of the wildly successful Anyone But You, in which he co-starred with Sydney Sweeney). The story, inspired by true events reported in this Texas Monthly article, is that a straight-laced professor (played by Powell) moonlights as a fake hit man in order to help police entrap criminals.
Adria Arjona plays the smoldering client that he falls for, which “ignites a powder keg of deception, delight, and mixed-up identities.”
Please, Netflix, we beg of you: Give us more movies like this gem.
