THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD
Cert 15 ★★ In cinemas now
Apart from the box office figures, the only surprising element of 2017’s shock hit The Hitman’s Bodyguard was a shoot-out set in the city of Coventry.
While this was definitely a first for a film, the rest of the movie was a bog-standard and painfully unfunny buddy comedy, pairing Ryan Reynolds’s uptight bodyguard Michael Bryce with Samuel L Jackson’s maverick assassin Darius Kincaid.
The sequel offers more of the same. The plotting is hopelessly muddled, the shootouts and car chases are clumsily staged, and too much of the comedy is based on people screaming and swearing.
The film begins with Bryce on “sabbatical” after losing his bodyguard licence in the chaotic events of the first film. But he’s dragged back into action by Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek), shouty con-artist wife of his arch frenemy.
Darius has been kidnapped by the Eastern European mafia and has apparently requested Bryce’s assistance.
The rescue mission is straightforward but serves the film’s purpose by bringing them to the attention of Frank Grillo’s Interpol agent. He press-gangs the trio into thwarting a preposterous plot hatched by psycho Greek tycoon Aristotle Papadopoulos (Antonio Banderas making zero effort to hide his Castilian accent).
When a film follows the caption “Athens” with the word “Greece”, you know it doesn’t credit its audience with much intelligence.
But Reynolds delivers a couple of very funny lines and you have to admire Hayek for delivering an energetic turn in such a lazy project.