An ordinary professor drives perhaps the most practical car in human history, wears sandals with socks and scrupulously measures food when he fills the bowls for cats. “Live at risk! Build cities on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius,” he passionately recites Friedrich Nietzsche's quote on a psychology pair, but exudes only comfortable predictability.
Gary never wanted to take risks. He didn't dare to change, even when his marriage was falling apart at the seams for lack of the slightest hint of passion. However, now the professor has a very pleasant relationship with his ex-wife: after all, it is simply impossible to be offended by such a cozy and boring person as him for a long time.
Gary does have a second life outside of university, though. Sometimes he gets into a stuffy minibus with local detectives and sets up wiretapping for undercover agents. However, the thrill ends there, because this clueless group of extremely confused fools who for some reason decided that a killer could solve their problems.
According to Gary, there are no assassins or bounty hunters. A mysterious stranger in a roadside diner ready to rid a customer of a business partner or cheating wife for an envelope of cash is a stereotype imposed by cinema. Therefore, desperate people have no idea that a police officer with a microphone is sitting in front of them.
But when the management removes the main “actor”, the role of a fake killer goes to the most decent and insecure person — Gary. On the go, he models the psychological portrait of an average murderer and, crossing the threshold of the diner, suddenly turns into a cool guy who easily seizes the initiative.
Safe under someone else's skin, ordinary Gary feels like he's in a movie. There is no danger for his real person, and therefore it's not so scary to stumble. The main character, unable to save his marriage from banality, easily finds a common language with potential criminals. After five troubling minutes, his comfortable everyday life will consume him again.
Richard Linklater often mixes light fiction into real stories. In a series of incredible events, he changes some details in such a way that it is impossible to separate life from the script. On the one hand, his paintings are mundane, on the other hand, they are filled with magic and complete fiction.
In “Apollo 10½” Richard Linklater mixed personal memories with childhood fantasies. And animation allowed him to blur the boundaries between reality and imagination, filling the most ordinary moments of childhood with magic.
Movie “Hit Man” — sometimes honest, sometimes brazenly deceiving — turns Gary's story into a game. Like the main character, which easily changes appearance, the plot pretends to be true when telling a lie and an invention, addressing an amazing reality. Richard Linklater combines the two characters in such a way that it is impossible to convict him of honesty.
Gary needs to convince a potential customer of his own worth and, after receiving an envelope with money, hand it over to the police. Wives who have successfully insured their husbands, businessmen in debt, and touchy teenagers who are tired of demanding parents turn to him for “help”.
Gary soon realizes that success depends on the appearance of an assassin, and wears a new mask for every meeting. Some will like Patrick Bateman, others will like a creepy quiet girl, and some will like a charming man who will fake her husband's suicide and comfort the widow. However, when the guise of Brad Pitt from “Killing Them Softly” impresses one of the customers, the main character continues to communicate with her, not noticing how the mask grows together with her face.
The variety of details that form a person makes it impossible to understand whether identity is an innate characteristic or an imposed construct — a person's image largely depends on whose society they are in. Exaggerating this idea, the film shows how socially awkward Gary pretends to be a charismatic hitman and falls in love with a girl who otherwise wouldn't fall for a humble professor.
At the same time, the “feigned” appearance is quite real, because the image of a loser can be the same mask created on the basis of social expectations. Under the guise of a killer and a psychology professor, the same person is hiding, whose behavior depends on his environment. And although the appearance of a bad guy is based on a lie, untruth is limited solely to appearances.
At the very beginning, the film declares its honesty, and at the end, about harmless falsehood. With a serious look, Richard Linklater voices philosophical problems in personality formation and then turns them into a mischievous adventure. In fact, the picture, imitating the main character and hiding his face behind countless masks, hides one simple idea: it's not boring only in houses built on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.
