I just couldn't take it anymore: after 75 minutes of stereotypical, juvenile stretches of logic, I had to leave.
(Note: I walked into this movie cold: no reviews, no trailers, no knowledge. I was invited and someone else paid for the ticket.)
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| Selma Hayek in The Hitman's Bodyguard |
Let's start at the beginning: Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is a ruined high-end bodyguard, reduced to protecting paranoid coke-addicted lawyers from imagined and real threats.
Next, Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman, who must have been desperate for a paycheck) is a mad-man oligarch standing trial for acts against Belarus humanity.
Interpol makes a deal with imprisoned hitman, Darius Kincaid (Samuel Jackson), to take Kukhovich out, in exchange for freeing his bride (Selma Hayek) from prison.
Kincaid's Interpol guards are led by, in true movie-induced coincidence, Bryce's ex-girlfriend, Amelia (Ellodie Yung). When the Interpol guards are gunned down by an interfering gang of hoodlums, Amelia and Kincaid are forced to go on the lam. Amelia promptly surmises that Interpol has a leak--the leaker is too quickly revealed--and calls her ex, Bryce, to come to the rescue and deliver Kincaid to Dukhovich to complete the hit.
Once all the players have been maneuvered into place, the movie switches to its intended bromance, with the end goal of putting each of the boys with their respective love interests. In between are a lot of guns, bromance-y guy talk and extended chases.
If you like your movies noisy and obvious, this movie is for you.
The best scenes in the movie were with Selma Hayek as the spewing, fiery wife. Nearly over-the-top in her mouthiness, she cuts loose far enough to engender laughs but not so far as to come off as a stereotype.
Which is something, given that the rest of this film is full of tropes and stereotypes: the emotionally closed-off bodyguard tempered the hitman with a heart. The sneaky French policeman who backstabs his spunky female superiors. The Belarusian oligarch who employs thugs to do his bidding.
Plus, the film is riddled with mistakes. Here are a few. In the opening court scene, an objection of hearsay is wrongly sustained: the witness was merely reciting what had occurred to him. Interpol is not a super-duper international police organization that binds together all police forces. Belarus is not a part of the International Criminal Court.
This is a movie made for simple entertainment. If you do not mind this, or the pointless interplay of bullets and love advice, then enjoy.
Me, I had to leave and go read a magazine about better upcoming movies.
It sounds like the film was exactly what it was advertised to be, but the review sounds almost surprised or offended that that's what actually happened. I think most people know what they're getting when they buy a ticket to this film. Personally, it's not my cup of tea so I don't plan on buying a ticket...I don't need to go to it with unrealistic expectations, waste my time and get offended, and then walk out (thus wasting my money as well). I did buy a ticket to see Wind River, which was excellent, but if I went into that movie and it was like this one, THEN I could see justification of the reaction here.
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