Adria Arjona, Glen Powell
“HIT MAN’ My rating: B (Netflix)
115 minutes | MPAA rating: R
An old cliche of Hollywood movies had a nondescript wallflower undergoing a transformation into jaw-dropping beauty, usually with the leading man saying something like, “Why Miss Jones, I’ve never before seen you without your glasses.”
Same thing happens in Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man,” which despite its title is not a noir-ish action piece but rather a romantic comedy (albeit one with subversive undertones).
Undergoing the transformation here is a guy who evolves from dull, dweeby college instructor to…well, anybody he feels like being.
Glen Powell — a 20-year acting veteran who recently became an “overnight” success thanks to “Top Gun: Maverick” and the Sidney Sweeney rom-com “Anyone But You” — seems to be having an absolutely wonderful time playing a dozen or so different characters.
Based on the (mis)adventures of a real-life undercover police consultant, the film starts with teacher and gearhead Gary Johnson (Powell) setting up surveillance equipment for a very special team on the New Orleans P.D.
This squad specializes in sting operations; they spread the word that a hit man is available for hire, then arrest the morons who come to said assassin (actually an undercover cop) waving money for a murder.
Is it entrapment? Maybe, but at least these are murders that never happen.
When the dirtbag cop who usually plays the hit man is relieved of duty for some infraction, nerdy Gary is enticed to take his place.
Despite an early case of nerves, it turns out Gary’s good at this. Before long he’s developed a small roster of alter egos, augmenting his appearance with fake teeth, contact lenses, wigs and a wardrobe that allows him to be everything from good ol’ boy to slick Eurotrash.
The moral dilemma at the heart of the screenplay (by Linklater, Powell and Skip Hollandsworth) arrives in the form of Madison (Adria Arjona), a young woman who wants to get rid of her insanely jealous husband.
Of course, Gary is thinking what every man watching this movie is thinking: if I can talk her out of killing her husband maybe she’ll land in my lap.
This is, of course, an ethically and legally dubious choice. But what can I tell you? In his latest hit man persona Gary is friendly, confidant, cultured, attentive and romantic. And the vibes given off by Powell and Arjona when they share the screen are scorching.
Problem is, Madison is still on the NOPD’s radar, and Gary will have to woo her while avoiding detection by his cop colleagues.
The mood here is lightly comic, then seriously romantic, and finally dourly cynical.
In any case, you’ve got to admire a film that sucks you in with a title like “Hit Man” and then never so much as waves a weapon, much less kills anybody.
“THE EIGHT HUNDRED”My rating: B- (Prime)
149 minutes | No MPAA rating
Inspiring equal parts awe and indifference, the Chinese “The Eight Hundred” is an epic war film made on a scale virtually unseen since the days of the ’60’s road show.
A cast of thousands. Unbelievable battle scenes. A butt-numbing running time.
Director Hu Guan and his crew here take on a bit of history all but unknown in the West. But in China the 1937 siege of Shanghai’s Sihang Warehouse carries the kind of patriotic weight the Alamo does for Texans.
Here’s the setup. Japan has invaded China and is advancing on Shanghai. Soldiers of China’s National Revolutionary Army hold the invaders at bay for three months. Now they’ve retreated to a multi-story warehouse on the banks of what appears to be a river (actually it is known as Suzhou Creek).
Besieged by 20,000 Japanese troops, they are determined to fight to the last man.
The scale of this production is flabbergasting. The warehouse is just across the creek from the International Settlement, Shanghai’s “ghetto” for foreigners and a playground crammed with nightclubs, opium dens, movie palaces and bordellos.
The Settlement is off-limits to the Japaneses (they don’t want draw European powers into the fight by killing foreign citizens), and this allows the foreigners to go about their business and/or watch the fighting in relative safety.
Weirder still, at night the Settlement is lit up like a carnival midway, an eye-dazzling magic kingdom just a few hundred yards from the carnage.
“The Eight Hundred’s” battle scenes are like “Saving Private Ryan” on steroids. Astonishing. Everything from brutal hand-to-hand combat to strafing runs by Japanese airplanes.
But here’s the thing: The production is so bent on giving us the big picture that it never gives us the little picture. The characters — officers and fighting grunts, Western journalists covering the situation, decadent club owners, prostitutes, diplomats, everyday Chinese — have been boiled down to maybe one salient characteristic.
Moreover, there are so many characters that none really have time to let their stories be told. (Things are even worse on the enemy’s end…the Japanese soldiers are essentially faceless versions of “Star Wars’” storm troopers.)
So in the end you’ve got a jaw-dropping spectacle for the eye and ear and a flag-waving paen to bravery, but a dead end in terms of personal human drama.
Well, sometimes you just take what you can get. And there’s no arguing with the numbers…”The Eight Hundred” earned $484.2 million in its initial theatrical release. making it the second highest-grossing film of 2020.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 