[Review] The Hitman's Bodyguard

Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson are the bickering duo in The Hitman's Bodyguard, a padded romp that gets caught up in flurries of mediocre action and never really forms its own identity.

Samuel L. Jackson plays the Hitman, Ryan Reynolds plays the Bodyguard. 25 minutes go by before the two actually meet, which is odd. Really odd. Anyway, the two begrudgingly team up for a fist-throwing, bullet-flying, car-chasing jaunt across Europe, with an end game to take down a Gary Oldman-played Eastern European dictator who might as well be called "Stock Villain."

Of course, the two leads possess enough appeal and charisma to make this thing watchable, and there are plenty of great Samuel L. Jackson lines along the way, like "I am harm's way" and "Tick-Tock, Motherfucker!" And this is exactly why it's an absolute crime that the two don't have more screentime here. Instead, there's a lot of surrounding sub-plotting and humdrum sceneage, as if the film, for some questionable reason, was hellbent on reaching a two-hour runtime. A head-scratching move, for sure.

As for the action, it's packed, but it's all kind of ugly, and not in the *good* ugly way. Between the sloppy editing, the mostly unmemorable fight sequences, and the stunts and effects that often leave much to be desired, it never rises above standard parking lot production, save for a crazy setpiece where Jackson busts Reynolds out of a seedy, hellish torture dungeon.

The Hitman's Bodyguard clearly wants to get the job done, but not much else.

( 6/10 )

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