Review: The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017)

The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Rating

Director

Patrick Hughes

Screenplay

Tom O’Connor

Length

1h 58min

Starring

Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Elodie Yung, Salma Hayek, Rod Hallett, Tine Joustra, Sam Hazeldine, Joaquim de Almeida, Yuri Kolokolnikov

MPAA Rating

R for strong violence and language throughout

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Review

There are few comic actors who are as adept at drama they are at comedy. Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson are two of them and they combine their abilities in the crass and crude The Hitman’s Bodyguard with great success.

Ryan Reynolds is suave and excessively organized as Michael Bryce, a Triple-A-Rated Executive Protection Agent (there is no such thing) whose career takes a nosedive when one of his clients is assassinated. He lays blame at the feet of his ex-girlfriend Amelia Roussel (Eldoie Young), an Interpol agent whose current assignment is to bring notorious hitman Darius Kincaid, played with foul-mouthed ferocity by Samuel L. Jackson, to The Hague. There, he must testify against brutal Belerussian dictator Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman).

It comes as no surprise to anyone that Dukhovich wants Kincaid dead and after a chaotic, but well oiled mid-town street fight, Amelia is left alone to defend Kincaid and brings in Michael to escort Kincaid to the trial in The Netherlands. Their back-road journey brings the former enemies together in ways both surprising and expected, all the while pursued by murderous henchmen who inflict serious harm on both men whenever possible.

Screenwriter Tom O’Connor has written only one film prior to this, a 2012 throwaway thriller called Fire with Fire. In the intervening five years, he’s done nothing. What he puts forth in Hitman’s Bodyguard packs in numerous buddy movie action tropes, but spices things up with an Odd Couple dynamic that feels fresh and distinct in a sea of similar outings. Its dramatic compatriots are hemmed in by a need to infuse only small comedic moments to relieve tension, here they are given full-frontal access, driving narrative as often as they are diverting it.

This is where the talents of Reynolds and Jackson come into play. Reynolds has frequently played the vain lothario, but showed new dimensions as the burn-scarred antihero Deadpool and has given his self-effacing charisma an upgrade in this film. Reynolds seldom misses his beats and his fastidious personality is perfectly tuned to grate with Jackson’s more aggressive, free-wheeling personality. Like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon showed in their hit film, and likewise Tony Randall and Jack Klugman in the adapted television series, it’s their ability to work together so effortlessly that makes the characters so intriguing.

Jackson, for his part, has played the obscenity-spewing egoist on many prior occasions, but opposite Reynolds, there’s a renewed freshness that has been bolstered by his recent string of tamer performances in films like Kingsman: The Secret Service and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He riffs off Reynolds with a commanding perseverance that keeps him on equal footing, giving and taking ground as befits the scene.

Oldman has had far more challenging roles in recent years and nothing here is even remotely above the bare minimum he’s ever produced. His character was underwritten to the point of almost pointlessness. He’s given a few scenes to exude menace, but each feels like an exercise in baseline performance, neither excelling nor demeaning. The same can be said for Young who is treated as a screenwriting hook rather than an integral cog.

That, in itself, is a bit worrying considering how much more compelling she could have been had she been given more to do. The same could also be said for Salma Hayek as Darius’ wife Sonia. She is uproariously funny in her disappointgly few scenes, but the character is given less depth than her male counterparts, though admittedly more than Young’s Amelia.

Director Patrick Hughes hasn’t much of a career built so far, but what he accomplishes in The Hitman’s Bodyguard shows decent promise. Tightly controlled with adept comedic timing combined with an eye for fight sequences keep the film fresh even when built onto an antiquated frame. He understands perfectly when to let his actors riff on each other and on the script and when to pull them off. His cinematic construction techniques aren’t inventive, but they aren’t bland either.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard lives up to the expectation of its first trailer, a corny send-up of the film The Bodyguard starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, down to the theme song and poster design. The film is lightheard and coarse in deliriously delightful ways. It may be flawed, but it’s always engaging and, for a summer diversion, that’s all one can really hope for.