Hit Man (2023) review

Adjunct professor Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), who works part-time with the New Orleans Police Department installing security equipment, is asked to take over the job of pretending to be a "hit man" after undercover cop Jasper (Austin Amelio) gets in trouble - things go well at first, with Gary using different costumes and 'personas' to trap his targets, but when he's assigned to nab unhappily married Madison (Adria Arjona) and refuses to have her arrested because he has feelings for her, it becomes significantly more tense for him.  Linklater, who co-scripted this with Powell, based this on a supposedly true story - Skip Hollandsworth wrote an article about the real Gary in Texas Monthly, calling him the "Laurence Olivier" of "murder-for-hire investigations" - and although the truth is stretched out a teensy bit, it is yet again another humanistic - and pleasantly offbeat - slice of oddball Americana: Johnson teaches the kids lessons in philosophy and psychology, and how you can "choose to be" whoever you want, and applies those lectures to himself outside the classroom.  Powell shifts quite easily from being a bookish acolyte of Gandhi and Nietzsche (who's still "friends" with his ex-wife) to self-confident "Ron," losing the glasses and trading in his Dadcore apparel for John Varvatos' entire catalog, while Madison acts as the movie's femme fatale ... and there's even a perverse happily-ever-after.  But the most important thing to remember is that this is precisely what happens when you don't pay teachers a proper salary.  Just sayin'.