Richard Linklater is currently promoting Hit Man, a Netflix film he directed and cowrote with Glen Powell. Powell pitched the story to Linklater and they cowrote the script, and Powell stars as the “hit man.” It’s loosely based on the true story of Gary Johnson, a community college professor who moonlighted as a fake hit man for the Houston police. As in, he would pretend to be a hit man to see who would try to hire him, and the police would move in, etc. The movie is supposed to be a sexy action-drama, with realistic sex scenes which will probably upset the Puriteens. Over the course of the past decade especially, there’s been less and less “sexiness” and intimacy in films. As Linklater promoted Hit Man, he discussed that issue and the modern audience’s prudish sensibilities.
Adult stories in Hollywood movies are “out of fashion” according to five-time Oscar nominee Richard Linklater. He says it was a struggle to get the “traditional” film studios interested in his latest project, Hit Man, despite strong critical and audience reaction when the film premiered last year. The movie is being released by Netflix.
Hit Man stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona in a romantic thriller comedy about a stuck-in-a-rut professor, Gary, who starts moonlighting as Ron, a fake hitman for a city police department and who falls for a woman who tries to enlist his services.
Linklater says that he and Glen Powell, who co-wrote the script, wanted to make the movie about “passion”.
“I said, it’s gonna have sex, it’ll be passionate, it’ll be carnal, the desire that drives everything,” Linklater tells the BBC. “Glen’s character starts off very dispassionate, but by the end of the movie he’s a different guy, he’s discovered passion, and the movie has this strong chemistry and sexuality. I think what’s out of fashion, people say there’s no sex in movies anymore, but there isn’t ‘adult’ in movies anymore, as sexuality in movies equals adult,” the filmmaker continues.
“When I was 13 years old and looking at movies, I thought the adult world looked pretty interesting, it looked fun and I thought, ‘I can’t wait to get there!’ But it wasn’t just the sex, it was the adult situations they showed. But somewhere along the way Hollywood inverted that. It’s like they said, ‘we’re going to make films where you can stay 13 forever, you stay that little kid with little kid concerns’, so I guess it drifted away as its complexities weren’t the subject matter of mainstream cinema as it had been before.”
I know I should analyze Linklater’s words more carefully, but broadly, I agree with him. I think this is the very heart of it too: “Somewhere along the way Hollywood inverted that. It’s like they said, ‘we’re going to make films where you can stay 13 forever, you stay that little kid with little kid concerns.’” That’s exactly what it is. In the rare movies where there are actual emotional stakes, it’s usually “violence against women” used as a plot device for the male characters. I grew up in era where there were sexy thrillers and neo-noirs being made with some regularity. And now those kinds of movies just aren’t made anymore.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
London, UK, 06 October 2023. Richard Linklater, Director. Red carpet arrivals for the showing of ‘Hit Man’ at the Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall during the BFI London Film Festival, London, UK.,Image: 811598727, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lee Floyd / Avalon 
London, UK, 06 October 2023. Richard Linklater, Director. Red carpet arrivals for the showing of ‘Hit Man’ at the Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall during the BFI London Film Festival, London, UK.,Image: 811729289, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lee Floyd / Avalon 
London, UK, 06 October 2023. Richard Linklater, Director. Red carpet arrivals for the showing of ‘Hit Man’ at the Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall during the BFI London Film Festival, London, UK.,Image: 811729340, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Lee Floyd / AvalonncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmcW9laIR0e9GimqGZopmsrbXNpKOarJWnrKm7y6WwsKefmaylscKim56cj6m8oLnApJyYnpmhurSr1qGcq52Prry2q8KapZirpJbGoH2SmJ2oqpWrsrN7