The Hitman’s Bodyguard is an Enjoyable — Albeit Disappointing Buddy Comedy
In The Hitman’s Bodyguard, washed-up AAA executive protection agent Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is tasked to protect Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), a contract killer set to testify against former Belarusian President Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), whose dictatorial regime has slaughtered innocent people during his rule. However, people that work for Dukhovich are trying to kill Kincaid before he is set to testify and Dukhovich can walk as a free man. It’s up to Bryce to protect Kincaid, even though they can’t get along as Kincaid has tried to kill Bryce 27 times in the past.
Obviously, the best part of the movie is the buddy-relationship between Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds does his usual “Ryan Reynolds” schtick, meaning he basically plays the same character with the same mid-pitched voice and scrawny personality, but it always works and Reynolds is always entertaining. I especially loved the opening scene in which we show how great Bryce is at Bodyguarding, with his trademark sentence “Boring is better”, until things go awry as the client gets shot and killed from afar by Kincaid. Bryce is a very egotistical character — blaming his then-girlfriend (Élodie Yung) for the death of Mr. Kurosawa (Tsuwayuki Saotome), even though all of this falls at himself. He’s always too sure of himself, and makes elaborate plans that always go bad because he keeps overthinking which leads him to forget about things, such as Kincaid stealing a burner phone from a goon which leads to them tracking Kincaid & Bryce. The duo can’t get along, and everytime they go off at each other is always entertaining. I also loved the obvious reference to how Samuel L. Jackson keeps saying “motherfucker” and how he, according to Bryce, ruined the word “motherfucker”. Kincaid’s character has some really good and surprisingly emotionally impactful character development during a flashback in which we learn how he became a contract killer. I wasn’t emotionally ready for that sequence and it hit me hard, emotionally.
The supporting cast, however, ranges from good to ugh. Élodie Yung is the only compelling supporting character, because she matters in Bryce’s arc to become a better person. Bryce learns a lot from Kincaid about the power of love, which caused him his arrest, but he also learns to become a better person from Amelia (Yung). Yung is excellent and I completely lost it when Bryce still thought she was responsible for Kurosawa’s death and, instead of saying “I’m sorry”, he says “I forgive you”. She obviously gets mad which prompts to great comedy. The comedy ranges from laugh-out-loud hilarious (Kincaid & Bryce) to cringe-worthingly terrible. There was no reason for Salma Hayek to be in this movie. Running at almost 2 hours, The Hitman’s Bodyguard could’ve trimmed a little bit of its fat by cutting Salma Hayek out of the movie, or maybe during a flashback sequence for an extended cameo. But her jail sequences are the definition of unfunny: body-shaming jokes, fart jokes, the worst kind of vile and sickening humor are in those sequences and none of them are funny. Everytime she was on, I wanted to fast-forward as she didn’t add anything to the movie, but slowed it down with horribly unfunny jokes.
Gary Oldman is also terrible as the main villain, Dukhovich. His terrible accent and caricature of a dictator doesn’t compute with some of his terrific villain performances he’s given in his career. He is portrayed as ruthless and soulless when he kills a family in front of their father, and then, before his Dick Jones-esque death (the CGI is absolutely atrocious), has a comedic punchline. He doesn’t deserve a comedic punchline as he is a soulless dictator. His spiel in front of the courtroom in which he says that he won’t apologize for killing innocent people is laughably horrible which leads into one of the worst climaxes of 2017. Some of the action sequences in the form of foot/car/motorcycle and boat chase sequences are very entertaining, and one firefight near the beginning of the movie is well-shot enough, but some other action sequences in the form of close-hand/one-to-one combat are absolutely terrible; shot and edited to shit, the same way director Patrick Hughes would film action sequences in his last film, The Expendables 3. While The Expendables 3 was rated PG-13, there was no reason to edit the one-on-one fight sequences so poorly in the R-Rated The Hitman’s Bodyguard unless they were trying to hide poor stuntwork. The CGI is also pretty terrible, as mentionned before. Many CGI explosions look and feel incredibly cheap, alongside crappy CGI blood squibs and magazine shots. To top it all off, one of the worst “fall-to-their-death” Dick Jones sequences in any film I’ve seen since Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop back in 1987.
However, it doesn’t really matter. The chemistry between Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds + some highly entertaining action sequences (key word is some. Actually, every chase sequence and there’s a lot) and mostly hilarious buddy comedy kept me engaged in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. There were some action sequences that were pretty terrible, awful CGI, mostly terrible supporting characters and a highly-predictable plot on a “compromised” Interpol (if you will) make it falter in some areas and, ultimately, makes it disappointing compared to the great trailers this movie has had. I would, however, recommend it for anyone that’s interested in seeing it.
✯✯✯½
