The Hitman's Bodyguard

I can't even remember when I've enjoyed four stars this much. Admittedly the buddy element doesn't really work there, as Reynolds can't keep an eye on Jackson, who clearly could do whatever he wanted here, even with a crane, and it has a terrible selection and use of music, but where it does dominate is in the field of unapologetic action, which is plentiful in the film and great to watch. The problem with most action comedies is that they have directors forged in the comedy genre rather than the action genre, and they have to work with actors who are a lot of laughs, but getting them to kick a jacked-up hundred-pound stuntman in a way that doesn't demand suspension of disbelief just isn't possible most of the time. Fortunately, Hughes is first and foremost an action director who has experience with explosive choreography, so I can fully enjoy all the stunts, chases, and shootouts, the live streets in broad daylight, and they're multi-layered to boot. The tour de force escalation is then the chase in Amsterdam, with five elements chasing each other (goons, police, interpol, bodyguard, and hitman) using boats, motorbikes, cars, machine guns, and bazookas, not one at a time but all at once. The streets are treacherous, full of dodging civilians, cars, outdoor restaurants and bridges, and everything is used to the maximum with first-class choreography. And at the end of the film, perhaps as if out of obligation, a helicopter still sort of casually falls on a building, just to say they did. Hughes has managed to make excellent use of every dollar of his $30 million budget, and though he still hasn’t quite come up with a new Lethal Weapon in hand, it suffices for one of the most entertaining films of 2017. (11/07/2017)

Though The Hitman’s Bodyguard has some pretty crazy humor, it’s less funny than you’d expect. But you get used to it and it works better in the last third, as does the chemistry between Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who would need a more sensitive director’s hand to guide them. The Hitman’s Bodyguard wants to be a cool tough-guy comedy, but falls into superficial arrogance (like the worst moments from Michael Bay). This fault is mostly displayed by the character played by Salma Hayek, who was not a fortunate casting decision. The action is abundant and decently loud. I was mostly pleased with the setting in the streets of Amsterdam, which we do not get to see often enough. (09/08/2017)

A romp full of the best lines from start to finish. Jackson is God and Reynolds in Deadpool mode (in fact this could be a prequel). Awesome action, locations atypical. And the last time I saw such a superb chase (boat, motorbike, car) was in Jackie Chan’s Armor of God. Fucking Prague! (01/28/2018)

I like movies like this a lot, and there hasn't been a classic action buddy comedy in a long time (no, The Nice Guys is not a classic action buddy comedy), so I was quite excited. And left the theater pretty disappointed. The Hitman’s Bodyguard always manages to score a few points on something, but after a while it trips over its own feet. Patrick Hughes does come up with and shoot some good action scenes, and a couple of them are excellent, but all of them are accompanied by completely inappropriate and ultimately annoying music. Samuel L. Jackson enjoys his role exactly as one would expect, but, unfortunately, Ryan Reynolds is usually next to him playing a depressed, boring and annoying buffoon. For a while it seems like an easygoing and funny film, only to switch at some points into a rather depressing and unnecessarily serious one. Well, the result is a mess that sometimes goes excellently, sometimes terribly and mostly kind of mediocre. After its clever and successful marketing, I expected a lot more. (08/21/2017)

Midnight Run for the new millennium... just don't expect a believable criminal plot or anything like that, because that's really not the case here. The film is just under two hours of Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, and not only their verbal shootouts and the pleasant “relax, everything will turn out well" atmosphere. However, I would cut down the length of the film, because it does not deserve slightly less than two hours and, for example, after the great escape from Amsterdam the second big action scene with a car chase was completely boring and useless, and only the brawl at a hardware store saved it. (03/08/2021)