The 2023 romantic crime film Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater tells the story of Gary Johnson— a nice professor who secretly works as a hitman for the cops. The movie stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona . The movie goes on, and Gary ends up in a complicated relationship with Madison, a woman who hires him to kill her dangerous husband. When Gary’s personal and professional lives collide, the story takes unexpected turns that lead to a shocking ending that changes—Gary’s life Forever.
But is there a real story behind this movie? In a few words, the answer is— yes! but only in certain ways. Even though the movie is based on true events, the plot is made up, especially the romantic and criminal turns.
Hit Man’s Story
Glen Powell plays Gary Johnson—a quiet psychology professor who helps the New Orleans Police Department with sting operations. Gary is put in charge of a fake hitman when his coworker Jasper is fired for being nasty to someone. He quickly learns how to fake being the cold-blooded killers that are hired for murder-for-hire cases. Because he is good at making fake identities that seem real, he gets a new case involving Madison, a woman who wants to kill her abusive husband.
Gary takes on the identity of “Ron” for Madison and pretends to be a hitman while falling personally in love with her. Even though Gary is a criminal, he feels sorry for Madison and even tells her not to use the money to kill someone and to leave her husband and start a new life. But as their relationship gets worse, an unexpected tragedy happens and Gary’s real identity comes out. As the story goes on—Gary is drawn deeper into the dangerous world of lying and manipulating people. This leads to a final showdown with Madison’s ex-husband and a twist involving blackmail and betrayal.
Is Hit Man based on a True Story?
Yes, Hit Man is based on real events, but not entirely. This story was based on an article by Skip Hollandsworth in Texas Monthly that told the story of Gary Johnson, a real person who worked as a fake hitman for the police. The way the movie shows Gary’s job as a chameleon-like figure who changes identities to get into criminal groups is based on real events.
In real life, Gary Johnson started out as a “fake hitman” in 1989, when he was an investigator for the Harris County District Attorney’s office. Johnson was good at pretending to be a hired killer—which helped him get caught over 70 times during his undercover work. Creating identities like “Mike Caine,” “Jody Eagle” and “Chris Buck” was something he was known for. People said nice things about how calm he was and how he could make even rich criminals believe he was real. Although this was true—Johnson was a shy—quiet man who liked to meditate and spend time with his cats when he wasn’t working as a spy.
In real life, Gary Johnson did not kill anyone, unlike the movie’s sped-up love story and violent turns. Instead, he helped prevent crimes by invade these dangerous scenarios and bringing the criminals to justice. While the character of Madison [played by Adria Argiona] is inspired by a real person mentioned in the article— her actions in the film, including the murder of her ex-husband, are fictionalized.
Richard Linklater, who directed the movie talked about how important it was to find a balance between staying true to Gary Johnson’s story and—making changes that made the movie more interesting. He said that the movie wasn’t just a retelling of Johnson’s life—but instead focused on the interesting and unique parts of the story.
In an interview, Linklater talked about how he thought some parts of the movie were exaggerated. Gary Johnson did wear masks to trick criminals, but Linklater said that these ideas were taken to a funny extreme in the movie. In the movie, Gary, for example, is shown to be very good at hiding his identity by taking on crazy identities, such as one with a Russian accent. The real Gary Johnson, on the other hand, was better at hiding his identity. Linklater said, “Glen Powell really ran with those false identities.” He meant that while the real Gary did wear some disguises, they were blown up in the movie to make them funnier and more interesting.
Linklater also talked about how hired killers are interesting to people and said that hitmen are often portrayed in movies but are very different in real life. “They don’t exist at the retail level, and they’d be so easy to entrap and arrest,” he said. He said that part of the movie’s appeal comes from the idea of a hitman as a professional killer who can solve all problems with one deadly act. “The fantasy of a hitman occupies a place in our brain because it feels like a simple solution to life’s complicated problems,” he said.
The movie takes a lot of artistic license especially with how it shows Gary’s relationship with Madison and how it ends with a surprise. For the record—the Real Gary Johnson never dated the women he helped and he never got personally involved in any of the cases he worked on. The romantic subplot in the movie, in which Gary has a complicated and eventually sexual relationship with Madison, is made up to give the story more emotional depth and tension.
Also, the murder at the end of the movie and the blackmail scheme that follows are completely made up by the filmmakers. The truth is that Johnson was never in such a violent fight. These dramatic elements are used to raise the stakes and make the story more interesting for viewers.
Hit Man (2023) is based on a true story, but the plot and characters are very different from what happened in the real life. It’s interesting to learn about Gary Johnson’s real life as an undercover cop who worked as a hitman, but the romantic and criminal plot twists in the movie are made up to make the story more dramatic. Richard Linklater and Glen Powell took the true story of Gary’s amazing undercover work and mixed it with a made-up love story and exciting crime scenes to make a movie that is both fun and interesting. The movie might not show every part of Johnson’s life, but it does show a fascinating side of a real-life career that was used as the basis for an interesting and dramatic movie.
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