In “Hit Man,” Gary’s adventure as a hitman by phone begins when he volunteers for the New Orleans Police Department in their undercover operations.
First work with your audio equipment. But when Jasper (Austin Amelio), an undercover cop, is suspended just before an undercover operation, Gary takes his place in the role of the fake hitman. Gary is successful and the police use him for long-term operations.
But according to the original 2001 Texas Monthly report, Johnson operated in Houston more than in New Orleans.
Linklater, who directed “Hit Man,” told Texas Monthly in May that they shot the movie in Houston, but there were no tax incentives.
“It was meant to be a genuine Houston movie, with all the Houston eccentricity. But our state thought otherwise, so we went to New Orleans, which is even wetter than Houston, I found,” Linklater said.
Texas Monthly reported in 2001 that Johnson had worked with police for most of his life. He began his career as a military policeman in Vietnam before returning to his hometown as a deputy sheriff in a Louisiana parish.
In the mid-1970s, he moved to Texas, where he worked as an undercover drug dealer with the Port Arthur Police Department. He then served as an investigator for the Houston District Attorney’s Office.
In 1986, police discovered that a lab technician named Kathy Scott was looking to hire someone to kill her husband. The prosecutor used Johnson as a fake hitman to extract a confession from him.
Johnson posed as a motorcyclist named Mike Caine and met Scott at a bowling alley in Houston, where she asked him to kill her husband. Scott was sentenced to 80 years in prison, and Johnson became Houston’s new undercover star.
In “Hit Man,” Gary works full-time as a professor of psychology at the University of New Orleans.
According to the 2001 Texas Monthly report, Johnson dreamed of being a psychology coach in college. He attended evening classes at McNeese State University in Louisiana and tried, unsuccessfully, to enter the doctoral program in psychology at the University of Houston. Johnson then went to work with the district attorney and has therefore never become a full-time college professor.
After his good fortune as an undercover hitman, Johnson taught categories of human sexuality and general psychology at a local network university, according to the report.
“His students undoubtedly regard him as an indisputably affable teacher, even though he tends to communicate in his categories the lack of capacity of human beings to cope with times of stress,” Hollandsworth wrote.
In the film, Gary excels at his fake job as a hitman until he meets Madison (Adria Arjona), a victim of domestic violence who murders her husband to escape his abuse.
Madison and Gary, who is undercover as a hitman named Ron, flirt on their first date, and Gary makes a decision on a whim to prevent her from hiring him. Instead, she advises Madison to take her money, divorce her husband, and get started a new life.
This is loosely based on a genuine case from Johnson’s career.
According to the 2001 Texas Monthly report, a young woman referred to Johnson after she asked a Starbucks worker in Montrose, Houston, if he knew a hitman to get rid of her abusive boyfriend.
Johnson investigated the woman and found that her boyfriend regularly abused her, so she referred her to social service agencies and a therapist. He also took her to a women’s shelter to help her escape.
This is the only time the Texas Monthly article describes Johnson helping to hire a hitman.
While the beginning of Gary and Madison’s story is accurate in the film, the rest is fictional. They never date, never marry or have children, and never kill two other people to hide their secret.
According to Hollandsworth’s report, Gary was married and divorced three times.
As in the movie, he is friends with one of his ex-wives, Sunny.
“The real essence of Gary is that he’s a loner,” Sunny told Texas Monthly. “He comes to parties and has a good time, and he is friendly, but he likes to be alone, to be quiet. It’s unexpected to me that it can happen after this other personality that makes other people think he’s a cruel killer. “
Powell and Linklater said they intentionally added this fiction to make “Hit Man” interesting.
Linklater and several other writers have been bringing Johnson’s story to film since 2001.
“Over the years, I got a little obsessed with it and got ideas about it, but it never came to me as a movie because the story doesn’t seem to go anywhere,” Linklater said, referring to how the Texas Monthly article does it. not having an attractive conclusion.
Powell told Netflix that when he called Linklater to make the film in 2020, he sought out the woman Johnson had helped.
“I said to Rick, ‘I think that’s the story. That’s the thread we have to pull,'” Powell said. “We still had the genuine Gary Johnson built into our character, but it was in the love story that we began to take our artistic license. “
The movie Gary and TV Gary have two cats named Id and Ego.
Texas Monthly reported in 2001 that Johnson had a goldfish and spent his free time feeding his pets, tending his garden, meditating, reading, or watching documentaries about animals.
In the film, Gary’s wardrobe is more elaborate and his accent more eccentric as he gains confidence as a fake hitman.
The real Johnson is also a master of disguise, according to the 2001 Texas Monthly report. Hollandsworth described the undercover cop as “the Laurence Olivier of the countryside,” referring to the prominent 20th-century actor.
Hollandsworth added that Johnson was able to go from being a “classy, competent killer” to some clients to a “shrewd country boy” to others.
But Linklater told Netflix’s Tudum last month that Powell’s wardrobe is more elaborate than Johnson’s.
“It was Glen who struggled with those fake identities that Gary creates for every single thing he creates,” he said. “The genuine Gary has dressed up slightly, but not to the extent that we see him in the film. “
But Esmeralda Noyola, a secretary who worked with Johnson, told Texas Monthly in 2001 that the undercover cop was smart at creating other voices and accents.
“I got to a point where I transcribed a tape of one of their conversations about a hitman, and I couldn’t tell Gary on the tape,” Noyola said. “Gary is smart at converting accents and disguising his voice. “
Michael Hinton, a former manager at Johnson’s, told Texas Monthly in 2001 that Gary was “the best chameleon. “
At the end of the film, Gary develops a password with one of his clients.
They visit him at the restaurant and ask him about the cake he eats.
He replies, “Any cake is a cake. “
The quote becomes Gary’s catchphrase and is a code word Johnson used in his undercover work.
According to the 2001 Texas Monthly report, a chemical plant employee once tried to rent Johnson to kill his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. Johnson advised that they meet at a Denny’s to discuss the plan, but the employee was looking for a secret code to make sure they identified others.
When he arrived, the employee would say, “It looks like a cake. “
“Any cake is a cake,” Johnson replied.
In the credits there is a tribute to the real Johnson who passed away in 2022.
Johnson died before filming on “Hit Man” began.
Linklater told Texas Monthly in May that he had never met Johnson and had spoken to him several times over the course of a few years.
“I like it, it’s okay, the movie is about to shoot right now and I asked him to come and make a stop on set,” Linklater said. “But he didn’t respond to my calls or emails. “
Linklater contacted Hollandsworth, who informed him that Johnson had died.
Powell told Netflix that he never spoke to Johnson, listened to the former cop’s old recordings and read his accounts with police.
“I wish I had the chance to meet him because Rick had a lot of respect for Gary and who he was,” Powell said. “I think Gary died the week before filming started, so he was never allowed to see a version of the movie. “movie. “
Powell added, “I’m pleased that we pay tribute to him at the end of the film, because I think he would have enjoyed the story. “
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