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| photo courtesy of teaser-trailer.com |
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson
unite for The Hitman’s Bodyguard, a
buddy-cop action/comedy film from Lionsgate. Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a
bodyguard assigned to take Jackson’s Darius Kincaid, a deadly assassin, to
testify at the trial of a criminal warlord Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman). Naturally, things go wrong, hilarity ensues, and we get to see Reynolds and Jackson blow people up together for just under two hours.
The movie follows the buddy-cop formula pretty closely, filling space with cheesy jokes, lots of action set pieces, and the occasional introspective moment. The plot’s not particularly important, but that’s not really the point, anyway. All you want out of a movie like this is a good time, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard succeeds on that front.
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| photo courtesy of rottentomatoes.com |
The script gets plenty of laughs, even if it can’t quite land all its jokes. It’s a Deadpool-esque brand of humor; that is, it depends frequently on either extreme language or extreme violence. Although it’s unquestionably hilarious, it’s not the strongest writing—barring a few particularly inventive crass insults, a well-built joke always triumphs over humor that uses language as its default punchline.
Yet unlike Deadpool, The Hitman’s
Bodyguard is anything but jaded. For every wisecrack, there’s a
corresponding attempt at real emotion. Seriously, I wasn’t expecting anything
like this from this movie, but it gets downright cheesy at times, talking about
the power of love and whatnot. Those moments come few and far between, but they’re
odd enough do stick out.
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| photo courtesy of denofgeek.com |
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