This good-natured romance/action film is what I will now think of when I tell someone about a good movie on Netflix to watch: low stakes, high reward, not a series and under 2 hours. Done.

Hit Man is about a nerdy, mild-mannered, and well-meaning school teacher called Gary (a star turn for Glen Powell, who co-wrote with director Richard Linklater). The kind of teacher that kids ignore or ridicule. Through a contrivance I’ll leave for you to see, Gary becomes a fake hit man for the New Orleans Police Department on the side.

For some reason, he’s just got a gift for playing a handsome guy who pretends to take money to “take care of” a stray husband for a jealous wife, etc. Without his glasses he looks like a movie star, and when he meets with “clients” he has an obvious knack for ad lib-ing just the right words for the occasion.

 Gary makes a wrong move when he falls for a gorgeous potential customer, Madison (Adria Arjona). She falls just as head over heels as he, and we really root for this mis-matched couple to find a way out of the trouble into which they keep sinking deeper.

Linklater has always been able to tell stories with a heart—even the ones that are rougher around edges.  He has said that the big studios shied away from this film because it was too many things: it’s an action flick, it’s a cop flick, it’s a romance and finally, it’s a comedy!

In other words, Hit Man doesn’t fit neatly into a single box. Well, maybe just the one I mentioned: this is the kind of movie you think of as a good flick to watch on Netflix.