AN ACTION-PACKED BUDDY FLICK
Hitman’s Bodyguard misses target
Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson have shared the silver screen once before, in a manner of speaking. Both were voice actors in 2013’s disjointed animated tale Turbo, with Reynolds playing a speed-obsessed snail and Jackson one of his racing competitors. They get a lot more face time in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Just don’t expect the story to make a lot more sense.
Let’s start with the obvious question: When does a hitman need a bodyguard? When he’s not being a hitman. Jackson’s character, Darius Kincaid, is apparently the only man who can provide damning evidence at the war-crimes trial of Belarusian strongman Vladislav Dukhovich, played by Brit-who-can-playany-nationality Gary Oldman.
Interpol promises that if he cooperates, then his also-imprisoned wife (Salma Hayek) can go free. But somewhere between Darius’s jail cell and the criminal court in The Hague, Belarusian thugs kill most of his police escort. Surviving agent Amelia Roussel (Elodie Yung) then calls on bodyguard Michael Bryce (Reynolds) to deliver Darius the rest of the way unharmed.
With me so far? The only other thing you need to know is that Michael and Amelia were once lovers, until he blamed her for a protection detail that went south. And — oh yeah — Michael and Darius have a past as well, and they hate each other. Small world, isn’t it?
Perhaps screenwriter Tom O’Connor and director Patrick Hughes felt that watching Deadpool and Nick Fury swear and trade withering quips in a variety of automobiles would be worth the price of admission. And they’re just about right. The problem is that if you also ponied up for popcorn, parking and childcare, you’re going to feel shortchanged.
Take the fact that the film appears to have been shot and edited by a particularly intelligent piece of software. There are far too many overhead shots of speeding black Escalades, lots of computer-generated hovering helicopters and just enough subtitles to give the whole thing an “international” sheen.
And you’re never in danger of getting lost, what with onscreen titles that provide locations like “Belarus” before helpfully adding “Former Soviet Union” in case
you’d missed the past 27 years of geopolitical history. Pity they didn’t go to Berlin so we could see it described as previously East Berlin (and before that, Nazi Berlin).
But most of the action takes place in Amsterdam, which must have thrown some tourism advertising dollars at the producers — how else to explain the action sequences’ attention to the city’s canals, clock towers, tulips, street life, cafés, red-light district, efficient mass transit and spacious highways? About the only thing missing is a shootout in the Anne Frank House, probably because the filmmakers wanted to keep things classy.
The story is propelled forward by an unbelievable ticking-clock device: If Darius doesn’t make it to the courtroom by 5 p.m., Dukhovich will go free. And so Reynolds and Jackson take to motorcycles, speedboats and cars — everything from Jags and Mercs to Fords so down market they don’t even have short-form nicknames.
All to a soundtrack that alternates between ironic pop numbers (Hello by Lionel Richie: Need we say more?) and a standard action-movie score, extra bass, hold the strings.
Mind you, there’s a fun bit in which Jackson and Reynolds have a sing-off, with the former crooning a number of his own creation called Nobody Gets Out Alive, while Reynolds counters with some vintage Ace of Base. It provides a memorable chuckle. And the film includes a few unmemorable ones, but little more to recommend it.