For a guy like Glen Powell, the ascent to movie stardom isn’t really a question. It’s more like an inevitability. Blessed with that square jawline, those bright green eyes, a flop of dirty blonde hair and the kind of symmetrical smile that would seem suspect if it weren’t so darn charming, he’s a Disney prince before they all became the bad guys.
And he’s got the kind of effortless, high-wattage charisma that ensures a career beyond soaps and procedurals, the typical resting ground for the laughably handsome. Powell has something, you believe, going on behind the eyes. This is all to say that suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite going into “Hit Man,” a decently entertaining action-comedy-romance about a fake hit man from filmmaker Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the script with Powell.
It’s making a brief stop in theaters starting Friday before hitting Netflix on June 7. Based on a “somewhat true story” though it may be, this is a film that asks its audience to buy into the idea that the characters in this film believe that Powell’s face is bland and forgettable. This has everything to do with his character, Gary Johnson, a philosophy professor in New Orleans who lives a quiet, solitary life in the suburbs tending to his two cats, birding, tinkering with electronics and helping the local police install surveillance equipment for sting operations.
He drives a Honda Civic and wears ill-fitting polo shirts, knee-length jean shorts and socks with his se.
