Protection racket
IN 1992, Whitney Houston fell head over stiletto heels for her po-faced protector, Kevin Costner, in the blockbuster thriller The Bodyguard.
A quarter of a century later, the heady musk of bromance pervades as Samuel L Jackson and Ryan Reynolds wedge tongues firmly in cheek to play the targeted prey and gung-ho guardian in Patrick Hughes’ high-octane action comedy.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a fitfully entertaining, testosterone-saturated romp that borrows the basic premise of the 1977 Clint Eastwood thriller The Gauntlet and orchestrates mayhem around the fractious onscreen chemistry of its two leads.
Tom O’Connor’s freewheeling script falls short of the filth and irreverence of Deadpool, and action sequences aren’t as stylish as that comic book caper, but the cocktail of obscenities, bawdy humour and cartoon violence slips down smoothly.
Reynolds and Jackson relish the potty-mouthed dialogue, but it’s co-star Salma Hayek who sinks her painted talons deepest into every scene.
She is a delirious delight as the latter man’s snarling, sex-charged wife, who makes her entrance by severing a carotid artery with a beer bottle and spits choice expletives from her perfectly glossed lips with gusto.
She perfectly embodies the film’s outlandish, knockabout spirit.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard ricochets between European locations as a high stakes game of catch-me-if-you-can results in wanton carnage.