The Hitman's Bodyguard
19/08/17 Filed in: Cinema
We saw this film yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Critical reviews have generally been poor, but comparing the critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes (39%) with that of audiences (76%), one can see that an element of artistic snobbery is probably at play. Too clichéd is the general opinion!
A film like this succeeds or fails on the chemistry between the two lead roles, and for my money that between Samuel L. Jackson, as Darius Kincaid, the hitman, and Ryan Reynolds, as Michael Bryce, the bodyguard, is spot on. Shades of The Nice Guys, I thought.
Bryce starts off as a Triple A rated personal protection agent, until that is a client meets a bad ending. He now works in the lower ranks of the protection market and is seriously unhappy about it. Kincaid is striking a deal with Interpol, offering to testify against alleged war criminal Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman) if his wife (a profane Salma Hayek) is released from prison in the Hague. Interpol has put together an elite team to accompany Kincaid to Amsterdam, a team in which Kincaid has little confidence. Heading up the Interpol team is Amelia Roussel (Élodie Yung), who also happens to be Bryce's former girlfriend. They broke up after Bryce accused her of leaking information that led to his fall from grace.
Dukhovich has assembled a team of very unsavoury mercenaries to ensure that Kincaid never testifies, and Kincaid's opinion of the Interpol team's capability to transport him safely anywhere is soon shown to be justified. He and agent Roussel are in fact lucky to escape a well planned ambush and make their way to a safe house. In the knowledge that there must be a security leak within Interpol, Roussel decides to call Bryce and ask him to take the job of bodyguard. This is problematic on two fronts: first, Bryce is still very sore about losing his Triple A rating, for which he blames Roussel; and second, Kincaid and Bryce have history, which erupts when they meet.
But from the film's title we know of course that he will take the job. From then on we're treated to the badinage between these two characters, which for me makes the film, clichéd or not. Jackson is superb as a devil-may-care individual who appears to be 'unkillable' despite continually placing himself at risk by ignoring everything that Bryce tries to do to keep them out of trouble. The trip to Amsterdam is not without incident, perhaps the zaniest of which is when they hitch a lift with a coach full of nuns, wherein Kincaid strikes up a collective sing-song session while Bryce sits morose and totally disbelieving.
In Amsterdam the action hots up even more, with an obligatory chase sequence, in this case involving cars (the bad guys), a speedboat (Kincaid) and a motorbike (Bryce). How they film such scenes in a bustling city is quite amazing. They must have commissioned quite a salvage operation at the end of it all. That isn't the end of the chase, with Kincaid treating us to another quite spectacular episode as he makes his way to the Hague War Crimes court with only minutes to spare before the deadline.
Besides what I thought were great performances by Reynolds and Jackson, Salma Hayek was also very convincing as a woman who had initially won over Kincaid by her ability to handle herself, both verbally and physically. Élodie Yung is under utilised in this film. As a real-life Karate black belt who grew up in the tough Seine-Saint-Denis neighbourhood north of Paris her talents could have arguably been better employed. Gary Oldman was sufficiently evil as Dukhovich while the leader of his mercenary gang, Ivan, played by Yuri Kolokolnikov, proved to be almost as unkillable as Kincaid.
Note that besides the killing, there's an awful lot of swearing in this film, should you be sensitive to such things.
But from the film's title we know of course that he will take the job. From then on we're treated to the badinage between these two characters, which for me makes the film, clichéd or not. Jackson is superb as a devil-may-care individual who appears to be 'unkillable' despite continually placing himself at risk by ignoring everything that Bryce tries to do to keep them out of trouble. The trip to Amsterdam is not without incident, perhaps the zaniest of which is when they hitch a lift with a coach full of nuns, wherein Kincaid strikes up a collective sing-song session while Bryce sits morose and totally disbelieving.
In Amsterdam the action hots up even more, with an obligatory chase sequence, in this case involving cars (the bad guys), a speedboat (Kincaid) and a motorbike (Bryce). How they film such scenes in a bustling city is quite amazing. They must have commissioned quite a salvage operation at the end of it all. That isn't the end of the chase, with Kincaid treating us to another quite spectacular episode as he makes his way to the Hague War Crimes court with only minutes to spare before the deadline.
Besides what I thought were great performances by Reynolds and Jackson, Salma Hayek was also very convincing as a woman who had initially won over Kincaid by her ability to handle herself, both verbally and physically. Élodie Yung is under utilised in this film. As a real-life Karate black belt who grew up in the tough Seine-Saint-Denis neighbourhood north of Paris her talents could have arguably been better employed. Gary Oldman was sufficiently evil as Dukhovich while the leader of his mercenary gang, Ivan, played by Yuri Kolokolnikov, proved to be almost as unkillable as Kincaid.
Note that besides the killing, there's an awful lot of swearing in this film, should you be sensitive to such things.