Film Review - The Hitman's Bodyguard (15)

I will bust a cap in your ass.

When I saw the (relatively spoiler-free) trailer for this film, I was mildly enthused. Yes, I thought, this might be an undemanding hundred minutes' worth of summer entertainment. A solidly made popcorn-flick with plenty of funny one-liners. Oh how wrong can a cinema-goer be? Ironically after my most recent spoiler-related blog feature, it's one of those cases where the trailer is as good as (or indeed somewhat better than) it gets.

Let me make this quick and painless so as not to waste your time. The Hitman's Bodyguard is a comedy action thriller (a potentially toxic genre-mix at the best of times), with Ryan Reynolds as bodyguard Michael Bryce. He protects people for a living. Then there's Samuel L. Jackson as Darius Kincaid - cool name, cool customer - who kills people for a living. They're long-time nemeses, but fate is going to lob them together. Kinkaid needs to testify against a former dictator (Gary Oldman) in the Hague, and Bryce unwillingly lands the job as his protector. Oh the mis-matched-duo comedy high-jinx that will ensue...

Both leads play up totally to their established movie personas here. Reynolds is detached and ironic, Jackson cheerfully foul-mouthed, with much use of his favourite polysyllabic swearword. You know the one. Their characters remain at that paper-thin level throughout. Yes the banter and violent slapstick is occasionally funny, but it's much more often tiresome. And as for the morality of the whole thing - well, that doesn't bear a whole lot of scrutiny. 

Bodyguard Bryce protects people, but they're often undesirables, which is why others want them dead. Fair point, worth making. Hitman Kinkaid dispatches people, but only bad guys, due to his code - you know, the one murderers-for-hire always have. So we like him, see? He's a dude, despite all the people he's killed. He loves his wife (Salma Hayak, so granted, he would) and he dispenses worldly wisdom and relationship advice to the people he hasn't killed. He's Samuel L Jackson, see, from all those other films, so we forgive him everything. More than that, we embrace him as a hero. 

That I could almost swallow in a better written film that wasn't tonally all over the place - because tone is a serious issue here. This is meant to be, at its core, a buddy comedy with big laughs and helter-skelter action. It contains, however, a huge amount of graphic bloody death among the quips, almost all of it throwaway with quite a few fatalities played openly for laughs. The latter is well-worn Quentin Tarantino territory, but this has none of elements that at least add a bit of substance to QT's work. Then there are the murders carried out in the past by Oldman's nasty dictator character. Those we're meant to feel bad about, likewise the pain of his victims' families, but not enough to get distracted from the - ahem - hilarious comedy mayhem.

It's a big mess and it's fundamentally shallow on every level.

Plus points - some good action, some good tunes and occasional moments where the in-car repartee cracks a smile. Also Hayak unleashes a few entertaining verbal tirades and the Netherlands locations look quite stunning. But the rest is rubbish. 

Basically if you want to see an action film this summer that has its game together, go watch Atomic Blonde. Yes it's uncompromisingly brutal, but at least it doesn't mix dark political violence with zippy dialogue and use violent death as a punchline. And it's not wretchedly boring either. Just saying.

Gut Reaction: Vague discomfort along with a few weak and quickly-diminishing laughs. Sleep beckoned at one point.

Ed's Verdict: Predictable, tiresome and a brand of bad taste that's not even leavened by any intelligence. One to forget.