A bantering movie star buddy-comedy actioner made like they
never went out of style, The Hitman’s
Bodyguard rests solely on its leads’ charismatic chemistry and its director’s
flair for hard-charging, light-touch action. Good thing that’s more than
enough. Ryan Reynolds (forget Deadpool;
this is the foul-mouthed bloody action comedy that made me understand his
appeal) plays a down-on-his-luck bodyguard whose freelancing career protecting
bigwigs took a nosedive after losing a client to a sniper’s bullet. Hoping to
regain his top-bodyguard status, he’s saddled, through various plot
complications, with protecting a funny, foul-mouthed assassin played by Samuel
L. Jackson exactly how you’d guess he would. (He’s hugely likable here,
appealingly soft-hearted for a vulgar, cold-blooded killer-for-hire.) The guy’s
moral code leads him to testify against a human-rights-abusing dictator (Gary
Oldman) on trial in Geneva. Or rather, he will testify if he can survive the
trip there. The setup is a simple clothesline on which to hang banter and
booms. Director Patrick Hughes (last seen helming Expendables 3, managing some memorable action between playing
traffic cop to the bloated ensemble) obliges with fast car chases, clangorous
gun fights, and heavy thwacks on the Foley track accompanying every
bludgeoning. It’s all in good fun.
Reynold’s bodyguard (reluctantly pulled in by his lawwoman
girlfriend Elodie Yung) naturally clashes with Jackson’s assassin (who ultimately
wants to negotiate the release of his wife, Salma Hayek). Prickly mutual
respect for their deadly skills and romantic motives remains separated by the
side of the law with which they align themselves. But once they realize they
both are only out to kill bad guys, they can make tentative peace in zippy
action sequences that take them through planes, trains, automobiles, SUVs,
boats, motorcycles, and a shuttlebus full of nuns. It’s that kind of movie. In
brightly glossy digital widescreen frames, the action isn’t as elaborate as John Wick’s or as sensation-driven as Michael Bay’s. But there’s a happy
medium to be found: proficient, efficient, hurtling stunts tied to a simple, effective ticking
clock narrative momentum. Cars flip and explode. Bodies toss and turn. It
builds a pleasurable rat-a-tat rhythm in which sometimes the staccato is the
explosions, and sometimes it’s the wisecracks. Even so, the charm is in the two
Movie Stars allowed to relax in a movie that lets their personas rev up and
collide in pleasing B-movie sparks while action erupts effectively and
concussively around them. It’s a splattery, foul-mouthed funny tone maintained
with aplomb.
