Hayek hits the right spot in sequel
The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (R16, 116 mins)
Directed by Patrick Hughes Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★
Slow-motion has been used in movies since the very early 20th century. It became mainstream in the 1950s and 60s, in particular.
And the jarring use of a catchy pop song to underscore a violent scene ismaybe a French New Wave technique, perfected in America by Martin Scorsese in the 1970s.
But I’m not even surewho invented the tactic of slowing down a violent scene AND putting a wildly contrasting song behind it. It is maybe one of Johnwoo’s gifts to Hollywood.
Woo had used the slo-moviolence-with-pop-music schtick a few times in his nativehong Kong. But he unleashed it on the American cinema in 1997 with
Face/off, with Nicolas Cage and John Travolta blasting seven shades of slow hell out of each other while an adorable tyke – and us – listened to Somewhere Over The Rainbow on his headphones.
It’s a terrific scene, which has been much imitated, dissected and parodied in the years since.
But, until I sat through The Hitman’swife’s Bodyguard on a Thursday afternoon, in an otherwise completely empty cinema, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a film that really only has that one trick to play. And it’s a trick that is damned near a quartercentury-old now.
I lost count around the seventh or eighth time director Patrick Hughes pulled the same stunt.
But I figure, as soon as The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is online, there’ll be a pretty deadly drinking game based around just how often Hughes throws his one gag at the screen. Like Seth Rogen’s dancing in Knocked Up, that one move really is all he’s got.
The Hitman’swife’s Bodyguard
is a loose sequel to what was a pretty likeable and fun 2017 original. The Hitman’s Bodyguard
teamed up Samuel L Jackson and Ryan Reynolds in a buddy comedy
When Reynolds turned to Hayek after one early profane tirade and said, ‘‘your mouth needs an exorcism’’, I actually laughed out loud. But, that was as good as the film ever really got.
about a hitman who must testify in court and the bodyguard who has to get him there in one piece. It was no Midnight Run, but the leads had some chemistry and the drop-in from Salma Hayek – as Jackson’s wife – was a highlight.
Hughes, wisely, unleashes Hayek early and often in the sequel. And she repays the favour by leaving everything on the floor in a performance of comic dementedness that really deserved a lot more genuinely funny lines than there are to be found here.
When Reynolds turned to Hayek after one early profane tirade and said, ‘‘your mouth needs an exorcism’’, I actually laughed out loud. But, that was as good as the film ever really got.
Antonio Banderas is the obligatory super villainwho has a secret weapon, but even he looks as though he wishes Christopher Walken had been available.
The great Frank Grillo guests as a government agent, in a story tangent so haphazard and muddled, I can only assume most of it is still on the editor’s floor.
A surprise cameo – I won’t spoil it – is a treat, but by the time it arrives, even this is far too little, too late.
This film, a bit like Reynolds’
Deadpool 2, is a rehash of an earlier success but with nothing left to do that the first instalment hadn’t already milked for every gag it had.
The Hitman’swife’s Bodyguard isn’t terrible. It’s just a lazy and uninteresting film badly in need of a few new ideas in front of the camera and a lot more behind it.
After previews in select cinemas this and next weekend, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard opens nationwide on June 24.