The Hitman's Bodyguard

2017 action comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A disgraced bodyguard has to protect a key witness, an assassin he's had some trouble with in the past.

This finally falls apart in the last fifteen minutes or so after threatening to fall apart for the first hour and a half or so. I kept expecting it to fall to pieces way before that, but it was a pleasant action-comedy surprise, mostly because both the action and comedy works well.

One of the actors named Ryan (the one who cracks wise perpetually) and Samuel L. Jackson have great rapport. Reynolds brings his sarcastic charm and Jackson gets to say "motherfucker" a lot and be way cooler than anybody you'll ever meet in real life. Jackson's first "motherfucker" comes at the 13-minute mark. I was going to keep track of the number of "motherfuckers" in this movie, but I lost count at around six and gave up. Reynolds, at one point, complains that Jackson's character "singlehandedly ruined the word motherfucker" at one point. These two bounce off each other very well, and Jackson, who has been in a lot of movies lately, finally looks to be having fun with a character again. The battle between fastidiousness and impulsivity might sound like a cliche on paper, but it's lively and manages to be refreshing with the way these actors create these characters.

There are other famous faces here, too. Selma Hayek plays Jackson's wife. She gets some an action sequence or two of her own--one in a flashback where she takes care of business to Lionel Richie's "Hello," one of those ironic song choices that also might seem like a bit of a cliche in these types of movies. But when Jackson says, "When she severed this guy's carotid artery with a beer bottle, I knew," it all just makes sense. The always-intimidating Joaquim de Almeida is also in this. And there's Gary Oldman who really demonstrated some range in 2017 by playing Winston Churchill and this very mean Russian baddie. It's the kind of fun, slightly-hammy performance that makes Oldman so cool.

There are a lot of very famous people in this who are just there to die violent deaths. This is, after all, an action movie. And the action works just as well as the comedy. There are a couple of well-choreographed--if a bit dizzying--car chases, one with a boat, a motorcycle, some cars, and a Wilhelm Scream. Lots of stylish shoot-'em-up scenes including some cool split-screen action at the beginning to show Reynolds doing his thing.

This overcomes a dependence on cliches and doesn't have a single dull moment. It's ludicrous movie fun, but if you're in the mood for this sort of thing, you could definitely do a lot worse.