The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
The 2017 comedy hit The Hitman’s Bodyguard combined the appeal of its stars’ cheeky on-screen personas with John Wick-style spurting-blood gun battles and other frenetic action sequences. The result was either a guilty pleasure or “a confounding mess” (to quote Edwin Arnaudin’s review at the time), depending on your willingness to suspend artistic standards.
The sequel finds security contractor Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) still struggling to revive his professional reputation, and his frenemy, assassin Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), in need of assistance from both Bryce and Kincaid’s wife, Sonia (Salma Hayek), who’s just as lethal and unkillable as the two men. The bad guy this time is a Greek tycoon, uncreatively named Aristotle (played by Antonio Banderas with his usual Spanish accent), who wants to cause a worldwide internet and communications blackout as revenge for … something.
The plot is meaningless and barely developed as the three leads travel around Europe, shooting Aristotle’s many henchmen in the head over and over, and getting captured repeatedly. The tradition of the disposable minion is well established, but this movie murders bad guys, military men, and law enforcement officers with equal jokiness, a cynicism that leaves a sour taste after a while.
What’s worse, the fact that the three leads are guaranteed never to sustain a serious injury means that there’s little at stake. Believe it or not, the most elaborate action sequence still derives a good portion of its impact from the narrative thread it clips or weaves forward — a lesson returning director Patrick Hughes has yet to learn. Shorn of emotional connections or a sense of actual threat, as this film’s battles and chases are, all that remains is a momentary chuckle or brief admiration for the stunt crew, neither of which yields much investment in the movie.
Reynolds and Jackson seem to have exhausted the possibilities of their love-hate relationship in the first movie, and the screechy screenplay for this one (credited to four people) can’t maintain the tension needed to fuel their rivalry, despite their endlessly vulgar sniping at one another. The films’ writers, all men, give Hayek’s character the most excruciating through line, forcing her to switch sexual allegiances and make many wisecracks referencing her own body parts and functions. (Women are not the target audience here.) Even a surprise cameo by a major star (whom I’ll refrain from naming) eventually heads into the realm of the distasteful.
I can’t say I was a big fan of The Hitman’s Bodyguard, but I was moderately engaged and amused. The sequel, however, is just loud and tiresome. It is full of likable movie stars, so some lines and stunts may raise a smile, but the story is so carelessly constructed and the action so rote and exaggerated that it’s mostly a sterile slog. If there’s to be a Hitman’s Wife’s Puppy’s Bodyguard, count me out.
Grade: D-minus. Rated R. Now playing at the AMC River Hills, Biltmore Grande, Carolina Cinemark, and other theaters.
(Photo: David Appleby/Lionsgate)
