“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” is evidence that it takes more than an appealing pair of leading men to make the dynamite go boom.
Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds team up in, but cannot save, an action-comedy that deserved a better writer-directing tandem than it got. Still, the on-screen presences of and chemistry shared by Jackson (“The Hateful Eight”) and Reynolds (“Deadpool”) do help elevate the romp somewhat.
“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” isn’t bad, exactly, but it isn’t nearly the fun piece of late-summer entertainment it might have been, either.
Jackson’s Darius Kincaid is a notorious hitman with a body count as big as his ego. To free his imprisoned wife, Sonia (Salma Hayek), Darius strikes a deal with Interpol to testify against brutal Belarusian tyrant Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman).
Interpol must transport Darius from England to Dukhovich’s trial in The Netherlands, which proves highly difficult from the start. An agent who survives a deadly attack on the vehicle carrying Darius, Amelia Roussel (Elodie Yung of Netflix’s “Daredevil” series), calls in a ringer.
That man happens to be her ex, Reynolds’ Michael Bryce, a once-highly rated bodyguard who has kept all types – including criminals – safe for a pretty penny.
When we meet Michael, it is two years earlier. He is protecting a sought-after arms dealer until that man is safely in the air. The man is killed by a sniper who shoots him from a great distance through a small window in the plane that would have flown him to safety.
Michael blames his fall from grace – he now drives a cheap car and works in the “mid-level coked-out-attorney market” – on Amelia, whom he told of his client’s identity. It’s something he’d never done before and believes the death can be traced to an Interpol leak.
Michael agrees to help her, only because she offers to help him get back some industry cred if he does – and make matters worse for him if he doesn’t. However, he doesn’t initially know the man he’ll be shepherding to safety is Darius, who has tried to kill Michael myriad times over the years as Darius has hunted the scumbags Michael was protecting.
Over the course of the roughly two-hour “Hitman’s Bodyguard,” the pair will fight each other, exchange vulgar insults, try to stay alive while working as a team only intermittently and increasingly bond over Darius giving love advice to Michael.
There are too few laugh-out-loud moments in the screenplay by Tom O’Connor (2012’s “Fire With Fire”), such as when Michael’s phone lights up with a call from Amelia and the display name is “Pure Evil.” The writing never quite sells the budding bromance that is at the heart of the story.
Perhaps more disappointing is the action, which, for the most part, is subpar. Patrick Hughes, who helmed 2014’s “The Expendables 3,” uses a ton of quick cuts to try to amp up his action sequences, but they still keep the viewer at arm’s length. Plus, he pumps loud music over top of them, further keeping you from feeling like you’re in the middle of the fury. A big chase through the streets of Amsterdam involving cars – and boats through the river in the center of the city – really could have been something in more-talented hands. Like the movie itself, it is a real missed opportunity.
To be fair, a less-ambitious sequence in which Michael is chased through businesses in the city is a better-made piece of work.
So it’s largely up to Jackson and Reynolds. They’re fun together, as you would expect, but they can do only so much with the ammunition they’re given.
And, sure, bullets aplenty fly in “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” but it just doesn’t have enough firepower.
‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’
In theaters: Aug. 18.
Rated: R for strong violence and language throughout.
Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutes.Stars (of four): 2.
