The Hitman's Bodyguard

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Hitman's Bodyguard)

There are actors that, when you see their names pop up on a movie poster, you know there's a good chance it will be a good film.  For my money those names include Jennifer Lawrence, Matt Damon, Emma Thompson, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Goodman.  The opposite is also true.  Few people see Adam Sandler's name on the poster and believe the film will be ace. 

Samuel L Jackson is a 50/50 gamble.  For every Pulp Fiction, there is a The Return of Superfly.  For every A Time to Kill there is a Kite.  Ryan Reynolds has a similar issue, although he's currently riding the Deadpool high.  But with Gary Oldman in the mix (and who doesn't love Gary Oldman) and a very enjoyable trailer, I reckoned this was worth checking out.  So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that this film was bang in the middle - it's not great, but neither is it terrible.

The plot is basically thus: Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a top of the line bodyguard who provides protection for the great and the good until his client is assassinated at close range in front of him, and he is disgraced in the profession.  This leaves Samuel L Jackson as the hitman of the title (Darius Kincaid) - he can testify against Belarusian dictator Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman) at The Hague.  It becomes Bryce's mission (for various reasons) to protect Kincaid, and get him to The Hague on time.  Hijinks ensue.


The Hitman's Bodyguard - a buddy movie

At heart, the film is an action buddy-movie: two unlikely people thrown together in unusual circumstances, who initially don't get on with each other and eventually work towards a grudging respect.  It's a plotline that generally works well - think Midnight Run, Lethal Weapon, Hot Fuzz, Turner and Hooch.  This film, unfortunately, does not make that list.


Not that kind of buddy movie

It's not without its merits. Reynolds and Jackson are fun together, and the film gets a lot of goodwill from the sparring of the two title actors.  I enjoyed their sing off as they tried to persuade the other of their philosophy of life.  And I particularly liked their retellings of how they met the loves of their lives (in both cases, the women being involved in a particularly slow-motion, violent encounter, while the men watched and power ballads played).  Their one-upmanship of each other makes for a few laughs as well.

But. 

Tonally, it's all over the place.  A little background digging reveals that the script was originally a drama written by Tom O'Connor (whose only other writing credit is for Fire With Fire).  It languished in 2011's black list for a while, before being acquired by Skydance Media and hurriedly being rewritten as a comedy over a two week period.  That really shows.  The film cuts from light-hearted banter to scenes of a man's wife and child being brutally murdered in front of him.  It cuts from quips to scenes of mass executions and unmarked graves.  The tone flipflops so quickly it's like some form of whiplash.  That's not to say films can't switch from serious to funny - Kingsman: The Secret Service, for example, did it admirably well.  I can't quite place why it doesn't work here, but does in Kingsman (and I would love to hear some theories to explain it).
Weirdly, some of the best scriptwriting comes in the emotional beats between Kincaid and discussions of his wife Sonia (Salma Hayek), and his relationship advice to Bryce about his ex, Amelia (Élodie Yung), which again feels very out of place amongst all the action.

The actions sequences aren't as slick as they should be - it feels like there's too many hands at work writing the actions sequences, so they don't know whether to be played for laughs or thrills.  That in itself is odd, because the director is Patrick Hughes who directed The Expendables.

Not that kind of buddy movie either

The performances, while fun, were very phoned in.  Jackson puts in his trademark louche act, Reynolds reprises Deadpool, Hayek is her standard not-to-be-messed-with Latina hellcat, Oldman is a non-descript mid-European bad-guy who seems to have no real rationale other than "just because".

There seemed to be nods to a lot of other buddy films (at one point, the main theme from Midnight Run just plays over the top of the action), and there's a sequence that seems directly pulled from the Bodyguard, so maybe part of the issue is that the film is looking around so much for inspiration that it forgets to get an idea of it's own.

Most damning of all was that I thought all this while watching the film.  I was in no way drawn in by the narrative, and it's never a good sign if you find yourself working out the reasons why a film isn't very good while watching that film.  It's a real shame - a little more time and effort from everyone involved could have made something good.  This isn't it.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
1.  Pleasingly, violence seems to mean something in this film - if you get shot, it appears to realistically hurt.  No brushing injuries off as a flesh wound.  Except in the case of Samuel L Jackson who gets shot in the leg, pulls the bullet out himself, and continues to repeatedly run and jump on the same leg.  But occasionally remembers to limp.  Sometimes on a different leg.  It's very distracting.

2.  Mixed portrayals of women.  Although both Amelia and Sonia are essentially relegated to the roles of love interest, neither appear to be sitting around moonily waiting for the menfolk - and indeed, both are keen to reject the sub-par advances of their suitors in favour of something better.

3.  Worth staying until the end of the credits.  Even though you might not want to.