Linklater’s Hit Man looks like a goofy roleplaying romcom in new trailer

The idea of pretending to be a contract killer while working undercover for the police sounds stressful as hell, but the first trailer for Richard Linklater’s Hit Man makes the gig seem like a fun way to work out those improv muscles.

Loosely based on journalist Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article by the same name, Hit Man tells the tale of Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), an unassuming college professor who spends his free time pretending to be a mercenary to help police flush out folks who intend to put hits on people. Though Gary’s disguises make him look like a cheesy character out of a film or show about shady criminals, that seems to be what convinces people that he’s legit before the officers he works for (Retta, Sanjay Rao) swoop in with handcuffs.

There’s a lot more subtlety and smoothness to the persona Gary slips into once he’s hired by Maddy Masters (Adria Arjona), a woman looking to have her husband murdered. But when the man actually turns up dead, Gary and the cops have to figure out who did it and how they couldn’t see the crime coming. The trailer doesn’t really make Hit Man seem like all that much of a mystery, but it could work as a lighthearted romcom with some slightly sociopathic undertones when it hits Netflix on June 7th.