The Hitman's Bodyguard (15.)
Directed by Patrick Hughes.
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Gary Oldman, Elodie Yung and Joaquim De Almeida. 111 mins
This action comedy is a series of atrocities strung together in an effort to get bodyguard Reynolds and hitman Jackson to the Hague on time, so that the latter can testify against ruthless genocidal tyrant Oldman. It's a thoroughly modern big screen entertainment – a flippant, carefree, mindless buddy comedy involving truck bombings, ethnic cleansing, waterboarding, gun battles in crowded city streets and a body count that soars comfortably into three figures. If five minutes passes without someone getting killed, they slip in a flashback of someone getting killed just to keep the body count ticking over.
The question is what is the bigger atrocity: the comedy or the action? As you might expect from a script credited to a Tom O' Connor the jokes are tired and rarely original. There is Jackson taking an ill-advised jump from a high building as in The Other Guys; a debate about the use of the word “plethora” similar to that in The Three Amigos. Even character-naming is lazy: a scientist is called Asimov, the only Japanese character is called Kurosawa. The banter between the two leads is made up of abuse and name calling. Reynolds is doing his Virgin Media ad shtick, lightly sending up his fame and his desperate pursuit of it, the preposterousness of having an improbably pretty face that is ever so slightly too small for his head. Samuel L is ….. well, let's be honest, you already know exactly what Jackson is. He's a performer as set in his way as Frankie Howerd, with expletives instead Titter Ye Nots. One of the few telling lines is Reynolds' complaining about how Samuel L has ruined the word motherf*****.
In comparison, the action is pretty nifty. Hughes directed Expendables 3 and has upped his game since that. Towards the beginning, the Interpol convoy taking Jackson to The Hague is ambushed by a set of Oldman's henchmen and the resulting shoot out is a very well ordered and agreeable slaughter. The problem is the hideous disjoint between the action, which ranges from over the top silly to Bourne era realistic, and the lighthearted tone. Come on, don't make me the bad guy here – if you are going to make a silly, knockabout romp about two stars swearing at each other and killing most everybody else, don't make the baddy a Belarussian war criminal and have a scene with news channel footage of people running away from a terrorist bombing. Not when twenty minutes earlier you have restaged the boat chase from Live And Let Die in the canals of Amsterdam. It's just not decent.
Directed by Patrick Hughes.
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Gary Oldman, Elodie Yung and Joaquim De Almeida. 111 mins
This action comedy is a series of atrocities strung together in an effort to get bodyguard Reynolds and hitman Jackson to the Hague on time, so that the latter can testify against ruthless genocidal tyrant Oldman. It's a thoroughly modern big screen entertainment – a flippant, carefree, mindless buddy comedy involving truck bombings, ethnic cleansing, waterboarding, gun battles in crowded city streets and a body count that soars comfortably into three figures. If five minutes passes without someone getting killed, they slip in a flashback of someone getting killed just to keep the body count ticking over.
The question is what is the bigger atrocity: the comedy or the action? As you might expect from a script credited to a Tom O' Connor the jokes are tired and rarely original. There is Jackson taking an ill-advised jump from a high building as in The Other Guys; a debate about the use of the word “plethora” similar to that in The Three Amigos. Even character-naming is lazy: a scientist is called Asimov, the only Japanese character is called Kurosawa. The banter between the two leads is made up of abuse and name calling. Reynolds is doing his Virgin Media ad shtick, lightly sending up his fame and his desperate pursuit of it, the preposterousness of having an improbably pretty face that is ever so slightly too small for his head. Samuel L is ….. well, let's be honest, you already know exactly what Jackson is. He's a performer as set in his way as Frankie Howerd, with expletives instead Titter Ye Nots. One of the few telling lines is Reynolds' complaining about how Samuel L has ruined the word motherf*****.
In comparison, the action is pretty nifty. Hughes directed Expendables 3 and has upped his game since that. Towards the beginning, the Interpol convoy taking Jackson to The Hague is ambushed by a set of Oldman's henchmen and the resulting shoot out is a very well ordered and agreeable slaughter. The problem is the hideous disjoint between the action, which ranges from over the top silly to Bourne era realistic, and the lighthearted tone. Come on, don't make me the bad guy here – if you are going to make a silly, knockabout romp about two stars swearing at each other and killing most everybody else, don't make the baddy a Belarussian war criminal and have a scene with news channel footage of people running away from a terrorist bombing. Not when twenty minutes earlier you have restaged the boat chase from Live And Let Die in the canals of Amsterdam. It's just not decent.
