The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Nov 04, 2017 in Action, Comedy, Reviews

Movie title: The Hitman's Bodyguard

Movie description: Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a former triple-A protection agent. After an incident in which he lost a client, Michael is now a bodyguard for hire. Desperate to get his old job back, Michael accepts an offer from Interpol agent and his ex-girlfriend Amelia Roussel (Yung) to help her transport notorious hitman Darius Kincaid from Manchester to Hague. Kincaid was supposed to testify against Belarusian dictator (Oldman) but their convoy got ambushed and all the agents were killed. It is obvious there is a mole inside the Interpol so she doesn't have a choice but to ask Michael for help. Problem is Michael and Darius are sworn enemies who now must put their differences aside and work together to make it to the trial on time (and survive).

2.5

Summary

The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a watchable and mildly fun action movie with good action sequences and some well-shot scenes, and mediocre script and performances. If you don’t have anything better to do and want to kill some time give it a try. Just don’t expect too much.

Director: Patrick Hughes

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Elodie Yung, Salma Hayek

Genre: Action, Comedy

Year: 2017

Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a former triple-A protection agent. After an incident in which he lost a client, Michael is now a bodyguard for hire. Desperate to get his old job back, Michael accepts an offer from Interpol agent and his ex-girlfriend Amelia Roussel (Yung) to help her transport notorious hitman Darius Kincaid from Manchester to Hague. Kincaid was supposed to testify against Belarusian dictator (Oldman) but their convoy got ambushed and all the agents were killed. It is obvious there is a mole inside the Interpol so she doesn’t have a choice but to ask Michael for help. Problem is Michael and Darius are sworn enemies who now must put their differences aside and work together to make it to the trial on time (and survive).

Directed by Patrick Hughes (Expendables 3), The Hitman’s Bodyguard actually has some pretty good and fun action sequences, regardless is it a car chase, fist fights or shootouts. And if you care only about that I think you will have a pretty good time. But if you also care about story, script, and characters, there are a lot of things that could be done better.

Look, the story for this kind of movie is serviceable and they even try to give Reynold and Jackson’s characters some background. Problem is I didn’t find the pairing of them especially successful. Ryan Reynolds is doing his routine here, Samuel L. Jackson also and desperately tries to be funny without much success. Of course, when you throw 100 jokes in a movie, some of them will land but most of them just felt forced. Gary Oldman is here just to collect a paycheck – he’s not bad here, but he also didn’t give a memorable performance like we all know he can. Salma Hayek plays Jackson’s wife, I won’t go into much details but she’s just horrible here, probably the worst performance of the year and worth a Razzie. I don’t know if she was supposed to be funny or what, I found her embarrassingly bad to watch.

There are also some really bad scenes that looked like a parody (for example scene in which they explain how Jackson and Hayek got together) – I know they tried to be funny but they didn’t succeed. Also, I didn’t like music in this movie, I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I thought song selection was this weak.

So there you go – The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a watchable and mildly fun action movie with good action sequences and some well-shot scenes, and mediocre script and performances. If you don’t have anything better to do and want to kill some time give it a try. Just don’t expect too much.

You can purchase a Blu-ray, 4K or DVD on Amazon or you can watch The Hitman’s Bodyguard on Amazon Video if you’re interested.

Blu-ray