Directed by:
Patrick HughesScreenplay:
Tom O'ConnorCinematography:
Jules O'LoughlinComposer:
Atli ÖrvarssonCast:
Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Elodie Yung, Salma Hayek, Richard Price, Richard E. Grant, Rod Hallett, Yuriy Kolokolnikov, Noortje Herlaar (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
The world's top protection agent (Ryan Reynolds) is called upon to guard the life of his mortal enemy, one of the world's most notorious hitmen (Samuel L. Jackson). The relentless bodyguard and manipulative assassin have been on the opposite end of the bullet for years and are thrown together for a wildly outrageous 24 hours. During their raucous and hilarious adventure from England to the Hague, they encounter high-speed car chases, outlandish boat escapades and a merciless Eastern European dictator (Gary Oldman) who is out for blood. Salma Hayek joins the mayhem as Jackson's equally notorious wife. (Lionsgate UK)
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Reviews (13)
Though The Hitman’s Bodyguard has some pretty crazy humor, it’s less funny than you’d expect. But you get used to it and it works better in the last third, as does the chemistry between Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who would need a more sensitive director’s hand to guide them. The Hitman’s Bodyguard wants to be a cool tough-guy comedy, but falls into superficial arrogance (like the worst moments from Michael Bay). This fault is mostly displayed by the character played by Salma Hayek, who was not a fortunate casting decision. The action is abundant and decently loud. I was mostly pleased with the setting in the streets of Amsterdam, which we do not get to see often enough.
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Hughes doesn't pack top of the range action like his colleagues Stahelski or Leitch, so even if it is supposed to look like that of John Wick or Atomic Blonde, it's not as good – some of the scenes, actually, look like out of a Van Damme B-movie made in Romania. But that's one of the few downsides of an otherwise very laid-back, at times very entertaining film packed with one-liners that is dominated primarily by the two leads, the iconic villain played by Gary Oldman, who is still doing his thing and still entertaining us, and Salma Hayek, who is 50 and, quite incomprehensibly, still looks 30. I don't think you'd want to see it repeatedly, because you'd miss the moment of surprise and realize what a load of crap it actually is, but it's fine lightweight disposable entertainment.
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I can't even remember when I've enjoyed four stars this much. Admittedly the buddy element doesn't really work there, as Reynolds can't keep an eye on Jackson, who clearly could do whatever he wanted here, even with a crane, and it has a terrible selection and use of music, but where it does dominate is in the field of unapologetic action, which is plentiful in the film and great to watch. The problem with most action comedies is that they have directors forged in the comedy genre rather than the action genre, and they have to work with actors who are a lot of laughs, but getting them to kick a jacked-up hundred-pound stuntman in a way that doesn't demand suspension of disbelief just isn't possible most of the time. Fortunately, Hughes is first and foremost an action director who has experience with explosive choreography, so I can fully enjoy all the stunts, chases, and shootouts, the live streets in broad daylight, and they're multi-layered to boot. The tour de force escalation is then the chase in Amsterdam, with five elements chasing each other (goons, police, interpol, bodyguard, and hitman) using boats, motorbikes, cars, machine guns, and bazookas, not one at a time but all at once. The streets are treacherous, full of dodging civilians, cars, outdoor restaurants and bridges, and everything is used to the maximum with first-class choreography. And at the end of the film, perhaps as if out of obligation, a helicopter still sort of casually falls on a building, just to say they did. Hughes has managed to make excellent use of every dollar of his $30 million budget, and though he still hasn’t quite come up with a new Lethal Weapon in hand, it suffices for one of the most entertaining films of 2017.
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It hasn’t happened to me in a long time that after watching a movie I would feel that I just saw two different halves of an action comedy that were really different in terms of quality. My excitement over a new action comedy gradually faded as I was watching a story taking place in London that wasn’t too funny and in which the pair (Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds) couldn’t seem to manage to tune in to the proper buddy-comedy wavelength. It took a long time and for a moment I felt that I wouldn’t manage to watch it to the end. For instance, Selma Hayek is so incredibly unfunny in this one and she didn’t fit in her role so much that it was nothing but embarrassing. But about an hour into the movie, something incredible happened. The movie relocated to Amsterdam and it not only turned into a whirlwind of action, but it got pretty entertaining as well. Samuel and Ryan literally found one another and they started shooting catchphrases at each other. In the end, I was so excited about the second half that I had to watch several scenes again. How is it even possible that one film could create so many different emotions?
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At times it grinds a lot in its blend of crazy buddy comedy with serious ideas and elements (Gary Oldman's villain is too one-dimensionally psychopathic for such a lightweight film), and the pacing is uneven depending on the attractiveness of each character, but the two title characters are so entertainingly sketched and their confrontations so well motivationally set, transformative, and embellished, with a supporting character (Hayek’s) that so perfectly embodies my idea of a badass femme fatale, and the action scenes so accurately combine adrenaline with hyperbole that I can't help but hum contentedly and recommend this action flick with an A-list cast; for Samuel's sake alone, who drops one firecracker after another and delivers his third best role after Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight. 70%
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