With a square jaw, bright green eyes, a mop of dirty blonde hair and a symmetrical smile that would look suspicious if it weren’t so charming, he’s a Disney prince before they all became bad guys. And he has the kind of effortless, high-powered charisma that ensures a career beyond soaps and procedurals, the typical resting place for laugh-out-loud handsome men. Powell has, you feel, something going on behind the eyes.

All of this is to say that suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite before going into “Hit Man,” an entertaining action-comedy-romance about a fake hit man from filmmaker Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the script with Powell. It had a brief stay in theaters before arriving on Netflix on Friday.

It may be “based on a somewhat true story,” but this is a movie that asks its audience to accept the idea that the characters in this movie believe Powell’s face is bland and forgettable. It has everything to do with his character, Gary Johnson, a philosophy professor in New Orleans who lives a quiet, solitary life in the suburbs, caring for his two cats, watching birds, tinkering with electronics and helping the local police set up surveillance equipment for sting operations. He drives a Honda Civic and wears ill-fitting polo shirts, knee-length jean shorts and socks with his semi-orthopedic sandals. And, of course, like so many disguised hot guys before him, he wears a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Why he dresses like your middle-aged uncle in 1992 is unknown. If he were in Bushwick, it probably wouldn’t even seem that strange. But this is a movie and we know Gary is destined to shine.

Not that “Hit Man” allows itself to have any fun with the makeover aspect. No, once ordinary Gary is thrown into this amateur undercover job, we only get to see the final look he wears to meet all the people who want to hire a hit man. He goes off into theatrics for these occasions, wearing wigs, makeup, accents and fake tattoos to try to be what he thinks each specific person thinks a hit man should be, which is moderately entertaining.

But other than a brief portion showing her looking at wig-and-makeup YouTube tutorials, her transformations aren’t properly examined. There’s no shopping montage, no Harvey Fierstein-type character helping her find her way into the college theater department’s costume room, and no apparent budgetary concerns or discussions, which seems odd for a guy who’s only doing this undercover work for the extra pay. In a movie that perhaps had a better engine behind it, questions like these might disappear with the laughs and enjoyment of a fairly silly premise. However, that’s not the case in “Hit Man” at all. Again, that suspension of disbelief is essential.

Things move forward with the arrival of The Girl, Madison, an unhappy wife who wants to get rid of her brutal husband. Gary sees her as “Ron,” who acts and dresses like the lead actor of an action movie, or an arrogant off-duty movie star who wears well-fitted jeans and tight henleys and cool-guy jackets that show off his unflappably ripped body.

And he treats Madison differently than many of the other characters he’s helped put behind bars, whose stupidity, trash and ugliness are all showcased to maddening comic effect. He decides she doesn’t really want this – a favor he doesn’t grant anyone else. He refuses her the chance to hire him to kill her bad husband, which she promptly does without incident before moving into a nice house and beginning a sensual romance with Ron.

Again, the question arises how this woman whose husband would not allow her to work and who was so scared of him that she was ready to hire a killer managed to escape so easily. But, you know, good for her and good for us too because the chemistry between her and Powell is just amazing and tremendous, on a par with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in “Out of Sight.”

But the honeymoon only lasts for a short while and things soon get difficult as Ron starts to become Gary’s main character. All of this builds towards a pretty exciting third act, with the introduction of an actual murder and the possibility of it being exposed by a suspicious and crooked police officer. And you can’t help getting the feeling that it needed something more: a bigger twist, a tougher conflict, some increased stakes.

“Hit Man” was a film that received some breathless praise at autumn film festivals, which may be to its detriment. It’s thoroughly entertaining: a glossy, easily digestible Powell showcase that’s not trying to do anything except be funny. But this isn’t the second coming of the action-comedy-romance.

The film “Hit Man”, released on Netflix, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association due to “language, sexual content and some violence throughout the film”. Duration: 115 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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