HIT MAN (2023)
This one gave me the ick early on and I never quite got over it. "Cop leverages his undercover identity in order to have sex with a woman leaving an abusive relationship" is a kinda dicey premise and the overall copaganda vibe doesn't exactly smooth things over. Nor do the talky Linklater-y bits in the classroom (which make a halfhearted effort to sell this story as an exploration of deeper existential concerns). A movie can sometimes overpower its dicier elements with enough raw charisma (I'm thinking of, say, Pitt and Jolie in Mr. + Mrs. Smith) but I'm straight-up not feeling that Powell and Arjona are anywhere near that level, despite the fact that this film clearly exists as a starmaking device for Powell specifically.
