Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, Retta, Sanjay Rao, Molly Bernard, Evan Holtzman, Gralen Bryant Banks
OUR RATING: ★★★★☆
Story: Netflix action comedy directed and co-written by Richard Linklater. Inspired by a true story, Hit Man (2024) centers on Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), a strait-laced professor who discovers his hidden talent as a fake hit man. He meets his match in a client, Madison (Adria Arjona), who steals his heart and ignites a powder keg of deception, delight, and mixed-up identities.
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Best Hit Man Quotes
Sylvia: You have to put yourself out there. You have to take risks and get out of your comfort zone because life is short. You have to live passionately and on your own terms.
Gary Johnson: Well, I have a three-word response to that. Ab-so-lutely.
Gary Johnson: I know on the surface my life looks simple, a little plain. A guy feeding birds and living alone with his cats in the suburbs. But I liked my inner life. I was pretty happy. At least, content.
Claudette: Congrats, Gary, you just got promoted to contract killer.
Gary Johnson: Breathe. Think hitman thoughts.
Claudette: [to Gary] Okay, Daniel Day!
Gary Johnson: You know, people feel almost disappointed to learn that hitmen don’t really exist. This idea that there are people out there at a retail level you can just hire to eliminate your worst relationship issues, or facilitate some money scheme, or the usual combination of both. It’s a total pop culture fantasy. But because hitmen have been a staple of books, movies, and TV for the last fifty years, good luck getting anyone to believe their existence is all a myth.
Gary Johnson: My job was not to debunk the fantasy, but rather become the fantasy. And I took that part of the job very seriously.
Gary Johnson: While I wasn’t the kind of person that could ever get worked up enough to want to kill or die for anything, maybe they had cast me correctly, because the one thing that had prepared me for my new job was my primary interest, the eternal mystery of human consciousness and behavior.
Gary Johnson: You know, I’m forever fascinated and amazed by the folks who actually think that some guy they just met ten minutes ago, for not that much money, would risk the death penalty to help them with some crazy murderous scheme. I almost envy their naïveté and passion.
Gary Johnson: I realized not everyone fantasized about the same fixer. So, I found tailoring the hitman to the individual client was much more effective. And I had a knack for being the person they needed me to be.
Gary Johnson: I’ve accepted the idea a normal relationship isn’t in my cards.
Alicia: No. What is normal? I mean, look at it this way, everyone is at least a little f***ed up. You just need to find someone who is a little f***ed up in a way that you like. Or at least, I don’t know, in a way that complements your own f***ed-upness. And that is a different kind of survival technique that would involve another person.
Gary Johnson: Oh, man, you would not believe the side of humanity I’m hanging out with. And a lot of it is seeing how love has just curdled into hate, and murder is just the best way out.
Madison: You enjoying your pie?
Gary Johnson: All pie is good pie.
Gary Johnson: Do you know someone who’s lost a child to a murderous, jealous cat?
Gary Johnson: You’re in good hands with me.
Gary Johnson: I’m just out here serving the overall public good.
Claudette: Yoh, Ron is f***ing dope. He’s like a Caucasian Idris.
Claudette: I would rip my IUD out for Ron.
Phil: I wouldn’t share a straw with Gary. Gary is hung like a straw, but Ron? Strictly nightstick.
Claudette: I mean, it’s kind of sounding like you would f*** Ron too.
Phil: I would take your sloppy seconds, if it were Ron.
Gary Johnson: There are three things you need to kill a man. The gun. The bullets. And the balls. And, boy, I am stockpiled on three of those things.
Gary Johnson: I don’t think I’m a dog person. In fact, I may be allergic to them. Physically and emotionally. I find them to be too needy, just pandering to whoever holds the meat. But at the end of the day, we’re all spineless. We beg for more, embarrass ourselves for the scraps of others. Dogs just don’t apologize for it.
Madison: You’re not a hitman. You can’t be. You cuddled puppies. You played with kids. You’ve opened every door for me tonight. And yet, you kill people for money?
Gary Johnson: Chivalry may be dead, but I didn’t kill it.
Madison: I tried looking you up, and nothing. It’s like you don’t even exist.
Gary Johnson: I guess I’m just your fantasy.
Gary Johnson: Being here with you right now is pretty damn unprofessional. But, hey.
Madison: Good. I don’t want you too professional.
Gary Johnson: How do you want me?
Madison: Do I scare you?
Gary Johnson: No. Do I scare you?
Madison: Should I be scared?
Gary Johnson: That depends on what your intentions are.
Gary Johnson: I was once told I think too much to be a good lover. She said exceptional sex requires a lack of thought, a certain amount of animal abandon.
Gary Johnson: I liked Ron. He wasn’t a thinker. He was a doer.
Gary Johnson: You know, I was always too shy to go out for the high school play. But I had somehow found my stage, and each arrest was like a standing ovation.
Madison: [referring to Gary] He’s a professional. He’ll do it. Show him.
Ray Masters: Professional what? Yeah. Professional a**hole.
Student: Excuse me. When did our professor get hot?
Gary Johnson: [after finding out Madison killed her husband] I don’t do this all the time. I’ve never done this. I’ve never killed anyone!
Madison: What are you talking about?
Gary Johnson: I’m a fake hitman.
Gary Johnson: I teach at a college. This hitman thing’s just a part-time gig that’s gotten out of hand.
Gary Johnson: I was stuck. I didn’t want to lose you, and you met Ron first. And you liked Ron. I liked Ron. So, I didn’t want to show you Gary.
Madison: Who the f*** is Gary?
Gary Johnson: I’m Gary.
Gary Johnson: I might have walked in as Ron, but I left as Gary.
Jasper: [to Madison and Gary] And the only reason that I’m one hundred percent sure that you did it, is because I am one hundred percent sure that your Mr. Tough Guy here couldn’t f***ing kill a thing.
Jasper: This dark f***ing adventure, okay, that we’ve all been on, can actually have a happy ending.
Gary Johnson: Look, I know you’re taking a big leap with me, and there are some factual loose threads we’ll be dealing with, but I think I’m in love with you.
Madison: Well, it’s always a leap. And for the record, I think I’m in love with you too. For better or worse?
Gary Johnson: We can agree this is kind of the worst, right?
Gary Johnson: That’s the point, isn’t it? To be inundated, overwhelmed by perspectives and possibilities, because that is what life is offering you if you choose to look at it that way.
Gary Johnson: Over the years, I’ve come to believe that the truth is created through the integration of different points of view, and there are no absolutes, whether moral or epistemological.
Gary Johnson: I find this to be a much more empowering way to go through life, this notion that if the universe is not fixed, then neither are you, and you really can become a different, and hopefully, better person.
Gary Johnson: The one thing I know for certain, is your reality will change over time in ways you cannot even imagine, and I urge you to be open for this transformation
Gary Johnson: If I have one piece of advice for you moving forward in this complicated world, it is this, seize the identity you want for yourself. And whoever you want to be after this class, be them with passion and abandon.
Gary Johnson: As love can do, somewhere along the way, it changed me. I eventually found the proper cocktail of Gary and Ron. After all, life is short. You got to live on your own terms.
Gary Johnson: We met at a magical little place called the Please U Cafe.
Madison: You enjoying your pie?
Gary Johnson: All pie is good pie.
Madison: It sure is.