Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Élodie Yung, Salma Hayek
OUR RATING: ★★☆☆☆
Story:
Action comedy directed by Patrick Hughes which follows a top protection agent, Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds), who is called upon to guard the life of his former enemy, one of the world’s most notorious hitmen, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson). They must put their differences aside and work together to get to The Hague to bring down a murderous dictator, Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), who is out for blood.
REVIEWS
Best Quotes (Total Quotes: 31)
Michael Bryce: This is Michael Bryce, I’m an executive protection agent. I’ve extracted my client. Cleanup is required. You might want to call the bomb squad.
[as an explosion goes off near them]
Michael Bryce: Make it the fire department.
Seifert: Was that my car?
Michael Bryce: I’m afraid so. Have a seat, it’s been a long day. A really long day.
New Reporter: The trial continues on one of the world’s most cruel dictators with a key witness to testify.
Moreno: Mr. Kincaid, this is Interpol’s offer. In return for your testimony against former President Dukhovich, your wife will receive a full pardon from all jurisdictions.
Darius Kincaid: You’re going to pardon an innocent woman? That’s mighty fucking white of you.
Michael Bryce: I’m a triple A rated executive protection agent and you’re the most wanted hitman in the world. My job is to keep you out of harm’s way.
[Kincaid starts laughing, looking annoyed Bryce punches him in the face]
Darius Kincaid: Shit, motherfucker. I am harm’s way.
Michael Bryce: [to Kincaid] I’m an executive protection agent and my job is to keep you out of harm’s way.
[as a bunch if Interpol Agents try to escort Kincaid]
Garrett: I can assure you, we’re more than prepared for any assault.
[Kincaid laughs then suddenly headbutts the Garrett]
Darius Kincaid: Prepared for that assault, motherfucker?
Vladislav Dukhovich: When Kincaid is paid you will be paid in full. I’ll guarantee it.
Amelia Ryder: [to Kincaid] There’s a safe house not far from here.
Amelia Ryder: I have a job for you. The transport is in there.
[as he goes to open the door, Kincaid opens the door at the same time]
Michael Bryce: What the fuck?
[Kincaid points his gun at Bryce]
Michael Bryce: [to Amelia] Twenty-seven times, that’s how many times this asshole’s tried to kill me. Twenty-seve… Twenty-eight! Can you believe it?
[Kincaid chuckles]
Darius Kincaid: I’ll be safer on my own!
Michael Bryce: You won’t last one hour without me!
Darius Kincaid: You going to be a little bitch about it? Fuck you!
Michael Bryce: Kiss my ass!
Darius Kincaid: That’s what she said!
[stuck on the roof of a building, they look down to see if they can jump down into the dumpster below]
Michael Bryce: No, no, no, no. There’s no odds in that jump. We’ve just got to find a more intelligent way…
[just then the Kincaid jumps off the building and crash lands down into the dumpster]
Darius Kincaid: Oh, motherfuck… !
Michael Bryce: Holy fucking shit!
Darius Kincaid: Baby, it’s me. Made a shank yet?
Sonia Kincaid: It’s a Dutch prison, Darius. What are they going to do, beat me with a clog?
Michael Bryce: [to Kincaid] How have you stayed alive this long?!
Garrett: Tell us where you husband is.
Sonia Kincaid: You lost my husband? That is your job, motherfucker!
Garrett: Tell us where you husband is.
Sonia Kincaid: You’re worried about my husband’s safety? He’s unkillable.
Garrett: Mrs. Kincaid, you need to tell us where you husband is.
Sonia Kincaid: Why the fuck should I? That is your job, motherfucker, but obviously you suck at it.
Michael Bryce: I hope they kill him, I really do. This guy single handedly ruined the word “motherfucker”.
Darius Kincaid: Tick-tock, motherfucker!
Michael Bryce: I was up here. Goddammit!
Darius Kincaid: I will bust a cap in your ass!
Michael Bryce: Have you ever said, “Please… “
Darius Kincaid: Please, motherfucker!
Michael Bryce: Why are we always yelling?!
[speaking on the phone]
Michael Bryce: Amelia, I want to tell you that I’m sorry for everything, it’s all my fault. You deserve better than that. I just want to say that, um…
[just then after he’s thrown out of the windscreen of the car]
Michael Bryce: Jesus Christ, really!
Darius Kincaid: What happened to the seatbelt rule?!
Amelia Ryder: The only way Bryce and Kincaid don’t make it is if they kill each other first.
Darius Kincaid: Yoh, you about done?!
[to Darius; referring to Sonia]
Michael Bryce: She sounds like she’s going to make a good mother someday.
Darius Kincaid: You never even took one for a client?
Michael Bryce: Nope. Never had to.
Darius Kincaid: Yeah, but the question is, would you? See, if I’m paying Triple-A rates, then I’m looking for that full-service shit, you know what I’m saying? That extra “A” stands for “ass,” yours, between mine and a bullet.
Michael Bryce: Being prepared for everything means that that situation statistically just won’t occur.
Darius Kincaid: Bryce, you cannot be prepared for everything! Life is going to bloody us up, okay? You just got to put a Band-Aid on that shit and keep rolling!
Michael Bryce: [sarcastically] That’s really beautiful, man. Do you ever just write stuff down? I don’t know, throw down a haiku or two?
Michael Bryce: Okay, on three. One…
[Kincaid shoots at the car and it explodes]
Darius Kincaid: My bad.
Michael Bryce: Your bad?
[as they wave goodbye to a bunch of nuns who gave them a lift on their bus]
Michael Bryce: Go with God. This man’s killed over one hundred and fifty people.
Darius Kincaid: Two-fifty, easy, man.
Darius Kincaid: You know, when life gives you shit, you make Kool-Aid.
Michael Bryce: That’s not really how that expression works.
Darius Kincaid: Yeah, and that’s the beauty of that motherfucker: Life.
Michael Bryce: Yeah, well, life, I mean life doesn’t usually give you shit, and then turn into a beverage. That’s not, at least where I’m from, that’s not how it works.
Darius Kincaid: Look, motherfucker, you don’t have to explain every goddamn thing that goes on in life! If it gives you lemons…
Michael Bryce: Okay? You don’t need a reason for that shit.
Darius Kincaid: …you would make lemonade.
Michael Bryce: Just shut the fuck up! It just doesn’t work that way.
Darius Kincaid: You take away the guns, the travel, the perfect shot through a motherfuckers face, I mean none of that means dick if I can’t tell Sonia about it.
Darius Kinkaid: How do I look?
Michael Bryce: You got a little speck of blood on your… everywhere.
Total Quotes: 31
Trailer:
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Has American screen comedy hit such a spectacular low now, or are scriptwriters and film-makers deliberately going out of their way to make the worst film possible, hoping to outdo the laughless atrocity that preceded it?
Triple-A rated protection agent Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds), who prides himself on co-ordinating each mission down to the smallest detail, sees his career go into free-fall when his latest client, a noted Japanese businessman, is successfully assassinated right before his eyes. Two years later, Bryce is a second-tier bodyguard-for-hire, looking after paranoid, cocaine-fuelled CEO’s.
Infamous hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), recently captured by the FBI, agrees to testify against Iron Curtain dictator, and short-lived boss-to-be, Vladislav Dukhovich (a seriously slumming Gary Oldman), so his incarcerated wife Sonia (Salma Hayek) can be set free. Afforded proper protection for his dangerous trip from Manchester to The Hague, Kincaid and his guardians are immediately attacked by Dukhovich’s goons. Decimated from the violent ambush, and fearing internal corruption, agent Amelia Roussel (Elodie Yung) calls Bryce, whom she was formally in a relationship with, for help. Bryce reluctantly agrees, as he is promised he will be re-instated as a triple-A agent if he successfully transports Kincaid to his all-important court-hearing. The two of course don’t get along, as there is also a history between them, but as the journey continues, they slowly start to form a bond, particularly when the body count starts to pile up.
A potentially fun premise, that could have been a breezily enjoyable 88 minute action/comedy, is bloated out to 118 minutes, for no discernible reason other than incompetence, with Tom O’Connor’s script devoid of laughs and interestingly developed characters, and Australian director Patrick Hughes seemingly having no idea how to deliver expertly-timed humour and excitingly staged mayhem to the screen. O’Connor’s only other writing credit is the 2012 action/drama Fire With Fire, starring Bruce Willis.
Whoever is Hughes’ agent, needs to be given some kind of special award. After Hughes dropped the ball in possibly creating Australia’s first film noir outback western, he somehow managed to score the gig helming the third entry in Stallone’s surprisingly popular franchise The Expendables. Easily the worst in the series (quite an effort, given how bad the second one was), the box-office returns of The Expendables 3 were hurt by the finished print being leaked online before release, but nothing could hide the film’s lack of distinction or energy. Hughes allows almost every scene here to go on longer than what it should, killing any chance of any kind of comic timing or narrative flow, making what should be fast-paced, lighthearted entertainment into something that becomes a serious chore to sit through.
The lack of chemistry between the leads, and an absence of well-written one-liners reminds one of the 1997 misfire Father’s Day, with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, where the film-makers lazily relied on the talents of its leading actors, expecting them to do all the heavy lifting. As such we never get actual characterisations, just the general persona of the performers themselves. Reynolds (who shot this before the mega-hit Deadpool) is his usual wise-cracking, slick-yet-self-depriciating self, while Jackson just swears and glares to the extreme. These one-note performances become tiresome very, very quickly, but admittedly the actors have nothing to work with.
Salma Hayek is supremely irritating as Jackson’s incarcerated, loud-mouthed wife, Oldman appears completely disinterested as Dukhovich, and a supposedly surprise twist is anything but, due to obvious casting.
With the highly entertaining South Korean film Midnight Runners showing how a buddy film should be done, The Hitman’s Bodyguard is yet another in a depressingly long line of comedic travesties coming out of Hollywood, a trend I really hope finishes as soon as possible.
Rating: 1/5
They should just call this movie, “Shoot All -And Die a Bloody Death.” No character development, no action technique that keeps the plot moving other than showing off guns and shooting. The car chases are so long and drawn out one after another. Since the writing has no substance they had to fill the whole movie with violence, blood, car chases, then blood, shoot out matches and more car chases. Don’t waste your time. It is so bad that it isn’t even worth watching just because Ryan Reynolds is in it.
Rating: 1/5