The Incredible True Story Behind ‘Hit Man’ on Netflix

Starring and co-written by Glen Powell, the Top Gun: Maverick star plays Gary Johnson, a psychology professor who discovers he has a hidden talent as a fake hitman, which involves doing dramatic imitations of his suspects with humorous costumes, accents and mannerisms. He begins creating false identities to trap criminals for the local police, but the situation gets tricky after he meets a potential client named Madison (Adria Argiona).

Is this a true story

Netflix’s Hit Man is based on the true story of Gary Johnson, who posed as a contract killer for the Houston police in the late 1980s and 1990s. Linklater found Johnson’s incredible story in a 2001 Texas Monthly article written by Skip Hollandsworth.

Madison wants to hire Johnson to kill her husband, but he steals her heart and sets off a “powder keg of deception, happiness and mixed identities.” Speaking to the streamer, Linklater described Hit Man as a film about “identity and self and obsession.”