The hired gunman in Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story “The Killers”—who, when asked “What’s the idea?,” answers, “There isn’t any idea”—is a primordial counterpart to the guard in Auschwitz who told the inmate Primo Levi, “Here there is no why.” Instead of filling in these blanks, filmmakers have tended to welcome them. Thus, like the movie Nazi, the hit man has become so emptied of substance as to be, with rare exceptions, a ponderous cliché—a deadly bore.
A prime virtue of Richard Linklater’s new film, “Hit Man,” is that it features no hit man. Rather, it’s centered on a character who portrays a hit man—an actor, in a sense, albeit one whose masquerade has nothing to do with entertainment. Linklater, faced with a plethora of precursors and stereotypes, leans into them with a diabolically smart yarn about illusion and imagination—less the psychology of the hit man than the psychology of the myth of the hit man. His comedic approach gets deeper into the archetype, by way of mere talk about violence, than many similar movies do with the grim depiction of gore. What’s more, the film is also a romantic comedy, among the cleverest and most resonant recent examples of the genre.
Denne historien er fra June 10, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra June 10, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
THE FOOTBALL BRO
Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.