Top cast a waste in bloody bad action comedy
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD
‘WHY are we always yelling?” Ryan Reynolds says to Samuel L. Jackson in a rare, passably funny moment in “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.” I have a few additional questions: Why did either of you gentlemen sign up for this tone-deaf piece of work? Who thought it was appropriate to use mass graves as a plot point in an action-comedy? And did someone get Vaseline on the camera lens? Because half the time the background seems to be out of focus.
It’s the rare movie that can squander the substantial talents of all four stars: Along with the generally likable Jackson and Reynolds, the chief baddie here is played by Gary Oldman, and Salma Hayek portrays Jackson’s wife, increasingly coming into her own careerwise as a total badass. But there’s an inherent ugliness to this movie that undercuts them all.
The plot sees Michael (Reynolds), an elite private security guard disgraced after letting a client die, transporting Darius (Jackson), an incarcerated assassin, to the Hague to testify against the president of Belarus (Oldman), whose goons aim to kill him before he makes it there.
Director Patrick Hughes previously helmed the third “Expendables,” which also seems to be how he regards non-A-listers in his cast. Violently and casually murdered extras are a depressing staple of today’s action fare, but “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” really seems to revel in explosively bloody shots to the head.
Interspersed with the gore is banter between the leads, who fall into a predictable odd-couple pairing of fussy (Reynolds) and gonzo (Jackson). Their rapport is amusing but incongruous with the mayhem around them. “Hitman” aspires to Tarantino — “S--t, motherf-- ker, I am harm’s way” being maybe the most obvious wannabe line of Jackson’s — and lands far short.