Who the fuck is Glen Powell?

If you’re anything like me, or the supporting characters of this film, you’ve probably been wondering this same thing for a while now. Who is this guy? Why is he everywhere I look? Why am I in handcuffs again?
 
Looking at his filmography online, I’m genuinely quite shocked to see that Powell has been around forever, floating through the background of little arthouse films like Ride Along 2 and Expendables 3. My minimal amount of research tells me that he rose to real prominence following a standout supporting performance as the All-American frenemy of Miles Teller in 2022’s box office smash hit Top Gun: Maverick, and since then his grip on the bull’s horns has yet to slip even an inch, starring alongside the people’s princess Sydney Sweeney in this year’s Anyone But You, and with remakes/sequels of The Running Man and Twister soon to come.

His latest feature, out now in cinemas and on Netflix (balls), is Hit Man, a dramedy which follows a nerdy college professor-cum-undercover cop as he slips further and further into his role as a hired killer for the dim and the desperate. As the question of “Who am I?” becomes harder and harder to answer, the life of Gary Johnson becomes more and more complicated, and eventually we learn that sometimes the road to happiness is paved with lies and deceit and sick-ass costumes.

Despite the millions of dollars that are devoted to marketing, branding, styling, and the curation of a very specific image by very sick people, it’s not easy to create a new star. Right now, we’re on the knife’s edge of leading men in cinema. The truly old stars, your Pacino’s and your De Niro’s, are finally, truly, old. And the following generation of stars, your Gen Xers, are getting to the age of no longer being able to do what they used to do, whether that’s due to failing to maintain relevance after publication of serious personal failings (Pitt), a seemingly early-retirement from quality productions (Clooney), or having a really wide face that’s hard to look at (DiCaprio). Even Denzel is turning seventy this year. Yes, we do still have Tom Cruise, right up until the day that he’s eaten by a jet engine, but what comes next?
Timothee is pretty locked in at this point – that pointy face is destined to be known even in the deepest and darkest corners of Madagascar and Milton Keynes. But who else is there? Tom Holland is a lost cause – a boy forever marred by that time he sang Rihanna on American TV, cursed to a permanent childhood like some horrible version of Peter Pan where he can only fly if there’s a greenscreen and Wendy is fucking other guys. Jacob Elordi probably has it in him but desperately needs to avoid just being known for Saltburn and Euphoria in the average mind. Barry Keoghan is good but also dresses like that. All these actors, plus guys like Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya, Robert Pattinson and Austin Butler, they all could eventually grow to be the household stars of tomorrow, but how does that happen? Is it just a case of acting like it until it becomes reality? Approaching every film as if it’s The Big One that pushes them over the edge?

Glen Powell spoke recently about how he’s quite discerning in the roles he takes, asking himself whether or not he can bring something to a performance that another actor can’t, and then making his decision based on whether that’s a yes or a no. Now, some might say that this was just a very clever way of justifying not joining the shitshow of a franchise that is Jurassic World, but it’s also quite a promising thing to hear from a (relatively) young and upcoming actor. I went into Hit Man not knowing anything about it besides that it’s “Glen Powell” and is directed by Richard Linklater (School of Rock, Dazed and Confused, nothing else). I thought it would be an action comedy and was very pleasantly surprised to find Powell really stretching his acting chops both comedically and dramatically. This is a film which is very much performance and dialogue-led, and in this sense, it serves as the perfect introduction to Glen Powell: The Actor. As his character, Gary, leans into his side-gig as an undercover officer, wearing a wire and busting would-be murderers, he begins to adapt his personality and his appearance to the needs of his audience: those very same murderers. He researches them intensely before meeting, scrolling through their Facebook pages and learning what makes them tick, before crafting a persona that he considers to be their ideal hitman. Will it be a suited and booted Russian with a love of old Americana? A gun-toting redneck with yellow teeth and a distrust of the federal government? Or a streetwise, straight-talking thug with a Glock? Gary’s careful preparation invariably leads to outstanding success, as the ‘clients’ meet him and see exactly what they were expecting to see when they set out to hire a contract killer. They’re comforted by their assumptions being proven right, and in the end, this leads to them letting their guard down and making a transaction that puts them behind bars.

As is usually the case with these types of films, everything becomes more complicated in Hit Man when Gary is assigned a case in which he is supposed to help convict a beautiful woman, Maddison (Adria Arjona), who wants her husband killed so that she can escape a bad relationship. Powell, playing Gary, playing hitman Ron, falls in love with her almost immediately, and so begins the confusing but empowering dynamic of Gary beginning a relationship where he is always the hyper-masculine, hyper-confident Ron, and never the hyper-virgin, hyper-nerd Gary.
In a nutshell, it’s a story of a man taking “fake it till you make it” as literally as possible, and seeing what happens when you really commit to the lies you tell yourself, and others.

Hit Man is a fun time, stacked with solid supporting performances, and one of the only films I’ve seen in recent memory with such a playful and honest approach to sex and sexual relationships. Although this is very much a Linklater film and there’s no full penetration (one day…), it pulls no punches in showcasing two very attractive people who both very much seem like they absolutely one hundred percent want to fuck each other in real life as well as within the film, and the mid-noughties energy of it all is incredibly refreshing.

Only time will tell if this will be the film that catapults Glen Powell into permanent stardom in the public consciousness but, even if it isn’t, I think Hit Man will still go down as a fantastic showcase, alongside his recent romcom debut, of a talented actor’s willingness to do the homework and make informed decisions about the roles he will take. As Gary tells us, when it comes to fulfilling your audiences needs and expectations, you’ve really got to consider which costumes are best to put on, and which costumes are best left at home.