Some movies have a great cast and they seem wasted in the given material. Welcome to The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
The world’s top professional bodyguard gets a new client: a hit man who must testify at the International Court of Justice. The two of them must put their differences aside and work together to get to the trial on time.
Ok, so you see there’s already an age-old premise at play here. And that’s used to make a lot of “homage” references to other mis-matched buddy films throughout this film. Sometimes it funny, sometimes it’s not so much.
I won’t deny, the good things here are almost entirely due to Ryan Reynold’s bodyguard, and Samuel L. Jackson’s hitman. Their banter is funny. But it’s not hilarious. There’s a fair amount of “just Ok” stuff in this. If I’m being honest, the day after I saw this, I almost forgot I saw it. You know how that is, right? There just isn’t enough in it to be memorable.
Salma Hayek is pretty funny as the fiery wife of hitman Darius Kincaid. She is being held in a Dutch prison until Darius gets to the trial so his testimony can get her out. She spits venom at all the guards -and her cellmate. It’s one of the more amusing moments. And the straight turn of Elodie Yung (Elektra on the Marvel show Daredevil) at least gives her some big movie screen time. Gary Oldman plays the heavy in this but he is almost as two-dimensional as he could be. He even rehashes an old Russian accent from Air Force One.
Richard E. Grant does get a great brief appearance as a paranoid, drug-using attorney who Ryan Reynolds (Michael Bryce) plays bodyguard to before going of to “protect” Kincaid. Grant is always fairly on-point.
there are, of course, plenty of car chases and people getting shot at, all of which seems pretty standard fare. There’s nothing here I would call note-worthy.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard certainly doesn’t dig too deep, either. This is calorie-free late summer entertainment. Well, if you could use that word. There’s no substance here like Hell or High Water – it’s fluff. If you’re bored and REALLY want to go to the theater, then there are worse ways to spend two hours. But director Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3) and writer Tom O’Connor, just don’t make this good enough to get much past a streaming view when it hits Netflix or whatever.
Maybe two and a half or so kittenhands – but not three. Nope.
~ Neil T Weakley, your average movie-goer, hoping this would be better.