Netflix’s latest movie deal is a juicy one for him as well as for us: the streamer spent $20 million to acquire the streaming rights Touch man, the latest film from the great director Richard Linklater. Not to be confused with the 2007 game adaptation Hitmanthe 2023 film was one of the most talked about films at the Venice Film Festival and has already racked up a string of rave reviews, currently sitting at 98% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, and seems likely to enter the pantheon of the best Netflix films. .
Touch man is the story of schoolteacher Gary Johnson, whose side business is posing as a hit man for the New Orleans Police Department to entrap people who try to hire him. The mild-mannered teacher becomes a completely different character when he cons the people who want him to kill their colleagues or colleagues, but when he falls in love with a woman who wants him to kill her partner, things get very messy indeed.
It’s an incredible story, and it’s also true: the film is based on one Texas Monthly article from 2001 in which Skip Hollandsworth describes the bizarre double life that Johnson led for years. It’s a beautiful piece of writing, but also a great story. Here’s a flavor:
‘The man’s name is Gary Johnson, but his clients know him by names like Mike Caine, Jody Eagle and Chris Buck. He is, they believe, the top professional hitman in Houston, the city’s foremost expert on conflict resolution. over the past decade, more than sixty Houstonians have hired him to shoot, stab, slash, poison, or suffocate their enemies, their romantic rivals, or their former loved ones.
What are the critics saying about Hit Man?
Touch man seems to avoid the familiar tropes of hitman films and instead focus on character: the BBC review says that “another, crueler writer-director would have turned to scenes of bloody violence, but Linklater prefers to think about whether you can force yourself to become a different person.”
Writing on Collider, says Ross Bonaime it is “one of the most entertaining films of Linklater’s career”. Ben Roll from The Wrap describes it as “wonderfully entertaining”. The says London Evening Standard it contains “many laugh-out-loud moments”, as well as elitist references; “it is also a thriller that is darker than it seems at first glance”. Jane Crowther at Total Film/GamesRadar says it’s “bubbly, fun, elevated…a damn good time (that) will leave you buzzing.”
The consensus is that Touch man is a very funny film that is more interesting than the typical comedy: according to RogerEbert.com, it is “equal parts charming, unnerving and ethically challenging”. Part rom-com, part action comedy and part thriller, he says it is “a masterpiece”. Luis Martínez from El Mundo: it is “as classic as it is modern, as funny as it is deeply disturbing”.
It’s pretty clear that Netflix has a hit on its hands. All we need now is to know when it will appear on our screens and be added to the list of new Netflix movies.