One of the most diverse independent directors in the US over the years has to be Richard Linklater. Since his 1990 debut Slackers, he has produced a surprising array of stories, as well as tell them in very unique ways; from his romantic offerings with the likes of 1995’s Before Sunrise and its 2004 sequel Before Sunset, to his quirky animated offerings such as 2001’s Waking Life and 2006’s A Scanner Darkly, to his 2003 hit comedy School of Rock, making him the kind of director you simply can’t put in one box.

His latest, for Netflix, is an action comedy, with the expected Linklater twist.

Teaching psychology and philosophy in New Orleans is Gary Johnson (Glen Powell). He’s the kind of guy who can walk into a room and very few people notice him, and he’s fine with that.

He has a job on the side however, helping out with tech support for the local NOPD, working on sting operations. This revolves around an undercover cop pretending to be a hit man, setting up jobs so they can arrest those that contact him.

Getting ready for one job and the team hit a snag: the usual cop Jasper (Austin Amelio) has just been suspended, with their mark still on their way to their locale. The decision is made that Gary should take his place. Of course initially he’s not keen, but as he has no choice, he goes with it. And it turns out that Gary is pretty good at being a fake hit man, so much so that he takes Jasper’s place.

Then on one sting operation he comes face to face with Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman who is in a bad marriage and wants her husband taken care of. But due to the fact that there appears to be some chemistry between the pair, he decides to let her go. This leads to the pair getting pretty intimate, as Gary continues his ruse with the persona he’s created of Ron the hit man for hire very much taking the lead with Madison. But how long can he keep this deceit up for?

Now on the page, this doesn’t necessarily sound like your usual Richard Linklater project, but then again, what is? The draw for the director apparently appears to be the fact it’s strangely based on a true story, with a lot of this story actually happening to the real life Gary Johnson.

It’s a film where Linklater has some fun, by his standards, with the theme of identity. Gary can often be seen in front of a group of students discussing just that, as he is seen explaining about id and ego. He’s then off on a police sting, using various identities of characters he’s created for the part, playing with his own self identity.

And this is kind of where Linklater struggles throughout, ironically enough, with the film’s own identity. It doesn’t really know what it wants to be, either wanting to be Donnie Brasco-esque, leaning into the drama of it all, or being a light and frothy action rom-com. And the film suffers from it with Linklater invariably failing to make up his own mind.

The two central performances, from Powell and Arjona, are engaging enough, but because of Linklater’s seemingly indecisiveness, you feel the pair are held back a little from really letting their hair down.

It’s certainly an interesting premise, but perhaps somewhat unusually, Linklater wasn’t necessarily the best man for the job.