![]() “From then on, the movie becomes a film noir, screwball comedy, whatever, that’s a complete flight of fancy,” he adds. Rather than end there, Linklater shows the character romancing Madison (Adria Arjona), the woman he sympathises with, while posing as a more confident hitman, Ron. She goes to get therapy and he lets her off,” he explains. “It’s near the very end he has some compassion because he sees she’s just confused. Rather than arrest this abuse victim, he referred her to social services. In reality, Johnson was asked to kill more than 60 people by prospective clients who were then thrown in jail.Īs Hollandsworth’s article describes, Johnson lets one of his potential suspects off, when he learns that she’s been “regularly battered by her boyfriend”. With his fellow officers listening in, he lures numerous dupes into giving him money as they ask him to kill their wife, husband, mother, arch enemy or whomever it might be. Transplanting the action to New Orleans from Houston, where the real Johnson lived, Powell takes on the lead role as the mild-mannered professor who suddenly finds his mojo when he’s promoted to the guise of a fake hitman. Photo: Venice International Film Festival “We realised we were just taking this leap from that character into what could be a fun rollercoaster ride of a movie.”Īdria Arjona stars opposite Glen Powell in the dark comedy. “I give Glen a lot of credit for pushing me,” says Linklater. The actor has read Hollandsworth’s article and felt it’d make a good movie, as long as they shifted from truth into fiction. Linklater read the writer’s article when it was first published and filed it away as a potential idea for a movie, but it didn’t become a reality until he received a call from actor Glen Powell, who audiences will know for his daredevil pilot in last year’s Top Gun: Maverick. “I’m friends with Skip,” explains Linklater, who had already adapted Hollandsworth’s 1998 story Midnight in the Garden of East Texas into his 2011 comic caper Bernie, with Jack Black. The film is based on an article by Skip Hollandsworth that appeared in Texas Monthly magazine in 2001. Johnson specialised in posing as a hitman to catch those who hired him to commit murder. Very loosely inspired by the true story of Gary Johnson, a college professor who moonlighted as an undercover policeman. Richard Linklater brought his new film Hit Man to Venice. ![]() Hit Man, however, is a film that lives and dies by its characters and the increasingly crazy narrative. “I approach stories and characters with humour, I think … but I’m not a big comedy guy. But you wouldn’t class him alongside Hollywood kings of comedy like the Farrelly brothers or Judd Apatow. The laid-back Linklater, 63, has often smuggled humour into his stories, from his indie debut Slacker (1990) and follow-up Dazed and Confused (1993) to the hit musical School of Rock (2003) and the 1970s-set Everybody Wants Some!! (2016). “This movie, even though it’s about murder, felt like it could be a comedy,” the director explains, when we meet on the terrace of the Ausonia Hungaria hotel on Venice’s Lido. ![]() Playing in competition, the action-comedy brought the house down earlier this week, receiving a five-minute standing ovation at the premiere. ![]() If you were looking to smile at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, then all you had to do was buy a ticket to Richard Linklater’s latest movie, Hit Man.
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