Quick Summary
Richard Linklater’s Hit Man will exclusively be on Netflix from 7 June and it’s already proved a massive hit with critics.
The comedy thriller movie has gleaned 96% on Rotten Tomatoes from reviewers.
Netflix movies rarely get reviewed much before they come out – it’s a natural part of the streaming world that they don’t get screened for critics in quite the same way as a normal release.
However, there are exceptions, something Richard Linklater’s next movie proves. Hit Man had already been filling seats at film festivals when Netflix picked it up for distribution.
That was in September 2023, and we’ve been waiting for a release date ever since. Now, we know Hit Man will be streaming on Netflix from 7 June this year, and it comes as an almost surefire hit.
Months on the film festival circuit have seen it rack up a whole heap of advance reviews, over 75 of them in fact – and it’s sitting on a massive 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe all you need to do to be the best streaming service is buy the best films.
It’s the sort of score that Netflix executives probably dream of each night, and it suggests the movie is likely to be a banger. It also sits in stark contrast to some of Netflix’s other movies recently, like Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon flicks, which have 21% and 16% scores respectively.
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All that leads us to the question of what Hit Man is actually about, although your biggest hint is indeed that title. It stars man of the moment Glenn Powell, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater, as professor who makes a habit of pretending to be an assassin.
Normally this talent is used in police stings, but it looks like things get a lot more complicated when a client (Adria Arjona) manages to get his personal feelings involved.
From there, the movie is apparently way darker than it might look, although it’s also very much a comedy throughout, according to reviews – so it’s that rare thing, a comedy thriller.
Netflix apparently paid around $20 million to acquire the movie, so it clearly thinks it’s going to be a hit, and those reviews make that look like a smart play, so Netflix subscribers can check it out on 7 June on one of the best streaming devices available today.
