Richard Linklater’s dark crime comedy Hit Man has earned rave reviews and become one of Netflix’s most popular original films of 2024. Starring Glen Powell as an unassuming professor who gets entangled in an elaborate police sting operation, the twisty neo-noir offers up an intricate web of lies, betrayals and close calls. However, some viewers were left with lingering questions after the credits rolled on Hit Man’s entertainingly serpentine plot.
One of the biggest unresolved mysteries surrounds the fate of the film’s central antagonist, Jasper. After discovering Powell’s Gary Johnson and his lover Maddy’s deception, Jasper attempts to blackmail them before the duo poisons and suffocates him in a staged suicide. While the pair seem confident the New Orleans Police will rule it as such, the film never confirms if their coverup was successful or if Jasper’s death was further investigated.
“Gary seems sure the disgraced cop’s death won’t be scrutinized too hard, but we’re left to wonder if he and Maddy literally got away with murder here,” writes critic Amanda Rogers.
Maddy’s potential criminal culpability is yet another of Hit Man’s Chekov’s guns left unfired. Earlier, she’s established as the prime suspect in her ex-husband Ray’s murder after soliciting a hitman to kill him. However, the NOPD inexplicably drops this line of inquiry, instead chalching Ray’s death up to a botched drug deal despite substantial evidence pointing to Maddy’s involvement.
“It makes the police look completely incompetent that they’d ignore Maddy’s clear motive and attempt to hire a killer just because she doesn’t confess to an undercover cop,” argues critic Robert Williams. “Why not simply bring her in for legitimate questioning with that evidence?”
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Unanswered relationship questions linger as well. The film’s final scene jumanhas ahead several years to show Gary raising kids with Maddy. However, the real-life Gary Johnson was married and divorced three times, leading many to speculate if the couple’s happiness is short-lived.
“We have to wonder if Gary’s pattern of failed relationships will repeat itself, especially since he’s established as someone ill-suited for domestic life,” ponders Rogers.
Then there’s the peculiar matter of Gary’s two pet cats, Id and Ego, who are present throughout the film only to strangely vanish from the domesticated future timeline. Fans have humorously debated if the felines met a grim or benign fate off-screen.
Smaller nitpicks have been raised as well, from the limited backstory around Gary’s divorce from ex-wife Alicia to what nearly got his NOPD partner Phil killed during a previous sting operation gone wrong. Hit Man is anchored by Powell’s charming performance, but its twisty story inevitably leaves some loose threads tangled.
As Rogers summarizes, “Hit Man stuffs its runtime with so many twists and double-crosses that some narrative loose ends were probably inevitable. Viewers are still bound to be debating and theorizing over its unanswered questions for some time.”
While most storylines reach a resolution, Linklater’s film seems to deliberately leave certain tantalizing mysteries open-ended, providing fodder for fan discussions and perhaps even leaving room for a potential sequel to clear things up. For now, Hit Man remains an impressively knotty neo-noir whose lingering enigmas only enhance its intrigue.
