Director Richard Linklater’s (School of Rock, the Before Trilogy) new film Hit Man is already – if you will excuse the pun – a hit with audiences thanks to its festival run and short theatrical release. This week it will finally be hitting Netflix, therefore introducing more people to the wild true story of Gary Johnson. Well, as the title card at the start reads, “a somewhat true story”.
Loosely inspired by a real-life tale, Hit Man stars Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell as Johnson, a part-time contractor with the police who stumbles into a role posing undercover as a hitman. From there the new Netflix film diverts from the true story as Powell’s Johnson falls in love with Adria Arjona’s Maddy, with the pair becoming dangerously entangled.
Whilst the film does indeed take that diversion, it’s pretty surprising what is directly taken from the true story. In fact, the very catchphrase used by Powell’s fake hitman was actually used by the real Johnson, as Linklater himself revealed in an interview with GamesRadar+ and the Inside Total Film podcast.
The director divulged that he heard Johnson use it on surveillance tapes he watched for research, then knowing that it had to be featured: “The line in the movie – ‘all pie is good pie’ – people ask me who made that up but it’s a Gary Johnson line. You can hear the people go like ‘oh, we are going to meet at this little diner, how will you know it’s me, I’ll be eating pie in the corner, come ask me how’s the pie, I’ll say you know…’ They think they are in a crime movie, that everybody is playing a role, that it’s a secret code, that they are dealing with the real deal here.”
Watching these real-life tapes of cases Johnson worked on was eye-opening for the filmmaker, who was fascinated by the various people searching for a hitman. As he told us, he finds the belief in this “myth” very strange: “It’s this myth – I think movies invented hitman, this character we have created as a culture that just doesn’t exist. People seem almost saddened or offended that they don’t exist, we are all invested in it for some reason. It’s so sad as we want to believe this stuff – we really should be relieved!”
He continued: “I also find it darkly comedic, the desperate people. I’ve listened to all these surveillance tapes, I’ve watched the sting operations, a lot of bad ’80s and ’90s videos – it’s so bizarrely funny the way the clients start acting like they are in a crime movie.”
And that’s exactly how the situations play out in the movie, with clients approaching Powell’s Johnson acting like they are in a Martin Scorsese gangster flick – it’s all very amusing.
However, one question remains – is all pie really good pie? A joyful Linklater’s answer is definitive: “No! There’s a lot of crappy pie in the world!”
Hit Man will be available to stream on Netflix from June 7. Keep your eyes peeled for more from our interview with Linklater, including the full chat on the upcoming episode of the Inside Total Film podcast.
For more films to add to your watch list, here’s our guide to the upcoming movies to keep an eye out for this year.
