HIT MAN***** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 3

Richard Linklater's HIT MAN is a super-sexy, laugh-out-loud comedy that had its London Film Festival audience burst into spontaneous applause mid-way through.  This is a film so smart, so brilliantly written and acted, so full of uproarious mischievous joy, that everyone involved deserves accolades and awards.  

Linklater and co-writer/lead actor Glen Powell (TOP GUN: MAVERICK) based their script on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth: a formula that worked well for Linklater in his 2011 comedy BERNIE.  The film tells the amplified and fictionalised story of a real guy called Gary Johnson who pretended to be a hit man to entrap criminals for the local police. 

In this version of Johnson's story, we see Powell's Gary transform from contented but dull psychology professor to cool sexy hit man and discover that he is happier and more confident in his alter-ego of Ron.  Problem is, Gary invokes the jealousy of bent cop Jasper (Austin Amelio - The Walking Dead) and this causes even more complications when Jasper figures out that "Ron" has started dating one of his suspects, the glamorous Madison (Adria Arjona) who may or may not be organising a hit on her douchebag husband.

The resulting film is absolutely hilarious, as Powell transforms Gary into a variety of Rons, tailor-made to the fantasy each of his potential clients have of what a hit man would look like. He can be a Russian thug, a Maga Proud Boy, Patrick Bateman or a mop top Scouser. At a more profound level, we are seeing a man with a perfectly respectable life try on other lives for a day.  The question this movie asks is whether one can use that experience to truly change. How stable is the self, and why shouldn't we all have the chance to change?

Powell deserves all the credit for his outrageously good lead performance, but I have to say I was blown away by Adria Arjona as his love interest and Austin Amelio as Jasper. This is just an incredibly strong cast, having a blast, taking the audience with them. I loved every second, and wouldn't change a thing. Netflix have  acquired the rights but if you can, and they let you, do try and see it at the cinema. This is a film that deserves an audience reaction.

HIT MAN has a running time of 113 minutes. It played Venice, Toronto and London 2023.

London Film Fest 2011 Day 12 - BERNIE

“It’s not as bad as people say; he only shot her four times, not five.”

Bernie Tiede was a good, god-fearing man, who went out of his way to please.  His patient, caring manner was an asset as a funeral director, and his willingness to throw himself into small-town life made him beloved by his fellow residents of Carthage, Texas.  So much so, that when it was revealed that Bernie had shot Marjorie Nugent four times in the back, none of the townsfolk believed him guilty. Oh, they knew he shot her dead, for sure.  But they figured that someone as mean-spirited as Marjorie must have incited Bernie to take leave of his senses for a moment.  Tragically for Bernie, prosecuting attorney Danny Buck knew full well that despite a full confession, four bullets in the back, and Bernie’s ample use of Marjorie’s money, he wasn’t going to get a conviction in Carthage. So he got the trial moved a mere 44 miles away to Saint Augustine, where Bernie's charismatic personality wouldn't get in the way of a fair verdict.

The wonderful thing about Richard Linklater’s new fictionalized retelling of Bernie’s true story is that he allows us to fall in love with Carthage, its quirky inhabitants, and with Bernie himself. By the end of the movie, we can’t quite believe that any humane jury would convict Bernie, and sit in fear that those no-good inbred St Augustinians won’t do him right.   Because this movie isn’t so much a character-driven crime drama as a Coen Brothers style love-letter to small-town Southern life.   We luxuriate in the broad accents, marvel at the cast-iron certainty of the town gossips as they declare that Bernie FOR A FACT was or wasn’t this or that, and laugh at their incomprehension of Austin hippies.  It’s hard to think of any recent use of faux-documentary talking heads that is as successful and hilarious as Linklater's use of  the Carthage townsfolk – narrating, commenting on, and judging the story at each twist and turn. 

Because I warmed so much to these people, and started to identify so strongly with them, the movie turned from what could’ve been a real downer into effectively a rather heart-warming experience. On one level this was a movie about really nasty aspects of human nature – a man so wanting to be liked that he wills himself into an emotional prison, and a woman delighting in his pain.  But rather than being brought down by the depiction of a bizarrely, horribly, sado-masochistic relationship (emotionally, not sexually, that is!), I left the cinema positively full of faith in humanity. Because Carthage was a small town where ordinary townsfolk knew just what was what, and a good guy was a good guy, even if blighted by a sudden act of rage.

All of which tells you that native East Texan, Richard Linklater, is pretty much in love with Carthage, and doesn’t really make much attempt to give a balanced view of Bernie. Or maybe he does, but the truth really is that Bernie was a good guy, despite the slightly suspect love of the high life to which Marjorie's money gave him access. By now, I’m so complicit in the “free Bernie” campaign I can’t even tell. All I know is that Linklater somehow managed to capture both the black humour and the tragedy at the core of Bernie’s need to please.  I laughed a lot, I was fascinated, and I won’t soon forget the tale. Massive praise also to all three leads.  Jack Black gives a more modulated performance than is typical in his mainstream films, as the gregarious, needy Bernie. Shirley Maclaine as mean old Marjorie is just an acting masterclass. Look at the scene where she listens to Bernie sing a duet in a theatrical rehearsal, imagining him singing a love song to her. Her face shows a cynical old woman melting.  And finally, you have to hand it to Matthew McConaughey, an actor who is brilliant in inverse proportion to his screentime.  Banality in mediocre rom-coms turns into piquant cameos – first in TROPIC THUNDER, and now as the fame-hungry prosecutor Danny Buckland. 

BERNIE played Los Angeles and London 2011.