Hit Man is the most pleasant surprise of 2024's theatrical calendar. Richard Linklater and Glen Powell teamed up to make a romantic crime comedy that is so relentlessly charming, so well-paced, and so smartly cast that it's easy to overlook the fact that its moral center is... somewhat missing.

Glen Powell plays Gary Johnson, a mild philosophy professor who moonlights as a technical consultant for New Orleans police sting operations. When the regular undercover operative gets suspended, Gary falls into the role of posing as a fake hitman to lure would-be murderers into confessing on tape. He turns out to be extraordinarily good at it. He researches each client, tailors a persona to their expectations, and becomes a kind of protean character actor who can be anyone the situation requires.

This is where the film's central idea clicks into gear. Gary reads Sartre and lectures on identity as a fluid construct. The hitman job becomes a practical demonstration of his philosophy — there is no fixed self, only the role you choose to play. It's smarter than the premise suggests, and Linklater handles the philosophical underpinning with a light touch.

The complication arrives when Gary meets Madison Masters (Adria Arjona), a woman trying to hire a hitman to escape her abusive husband. Gary refuses the job but offers to help her restart her life instead. They fall into a relationship. Then her husband turns up dead. Then it becomes apparent she shot him.

The film's handling of this development is where conservative viewers will have the most to wrestle with. Gary, who is supposed to be working for law enforcement, helps Madison avoid prosecution. He puts on a wire and performs a fake interrogation designed not to elicit a confession but to prove her innocence to the listening cops. It works. The corrupt detective Jasper turns out to be the real villain — he's been running his own extortion scheme and is the more immediate threat. Gary and Madison kill Jasper together and live happily ever after.

Is this woke? Not exactly. Noir has always featured protagonists who bend or break the law for the right woman. Double Indemnity, Body Heat, Out of Time — the tradition is long. What separates Hit Man from explicit ideology is that it never moralizes. It doesn't lecture you about domestic violence. It doesn't have Gary deliver a speech about flawed systems. It just tells the story and trusts you to decide what you think.

Powell is excellent throughout. He's a star-making turn in the most literal sense — this is the film that demonstrates he can anchor a movie on charisma alone. Arjona matches him. The chemistry is real. Linklater keeps everything moving at a pace that doesn't allow the moral questions to accumulate. By the time you're thinking about them, the credits are rolling.

For conservative viewers, the film offers genuine pleasures: an original story, practical filmmaking, real star charisma, and a thriller plot that earns its resolutions. The concerns are real but not dominant. Hit Man is entertainment first, and the entertainment is very good.

Trope	Category	Location	Authenticity
Institutional Corruption (Individual, Not Systemic)	WOKE	Second and third acts — Detective Jasper is corrupt, running extortion schemes; he represents the bad actor within the system	Moderate. The corrupt cop trope is genre convention rather than ideological statement here. Jasper is portrayed as an individual bad actor, not evidence of systemic failure. The other police officers are presented as competent and good-faith.
Helping a Killer Escape Justice	WOKE	Third act — Gary deliberately sabotages his own police work to help Madison avoid prosecution for killing Ray	Central to the plot. The film presents this as romantic and justified given Ray's abusiveness. The moral framework around this decision is thin — Gary simply does it and it works out.
Fluid Identity / No Fixed Self	WOKE	Throughout — Gary's philosophy lectures on identity, his hitman persona-play, are presented as liberating and sophisticated	Organic to the premise. Linklater is genuinely interested in these philosophical questions. The treatment is not heavy-handed.
Romantic Devotion	TRADITIONAL	Gary's arc — he abandons professional ethics out of genuine romantic attachment to Madison; the love story is sincere	Authentic. The film earns its romance. The Powell-Arjona chemistry is the engine of the film.
Industry and Perseverance	TRADITIONAL	Gary's research and preparation for each hitman persona — he works carefully and methodically; the craft angle is well-developed	Authentic. The film takes Gary's preparation seriously. He's not a natural — he becomes one through deliberate effort.
Genuine Star Charisma	TRADITIONAL	Glen Powell's performance — old-school movie star charisma, confident masculine lead without feminist deconstruction	Authentic. Powell's star quality is real and traditional. The film allows him to be a competent, confident, likable male lead.