With his reputation in tatters after a painfully unsuccessful delivery of a distinguished Japanese client, former triple-A executive protection agent, Michael Bryce, two long years after the disgraceful incident, is now reduced to a mere second-class bodyguard for hire. Under those circumstances, Bryce would do anything to prove his worth once again, and as a result, it won’t be long before he accepts an offer from Interpol to escort the renowned international assassin Darius Kincaid from Manchester to the Hague. The task seems simple: Bryce only needs to transport the contract killer from point A to point B, nevertheless, Kincaid, as the only one with the guts and enough hard evidence to testify against a tyrannical Belarusian dictator, is an obvious target, while the trip to the Netherlands is long and hazardous. Without a doubt, this a race against the clock as the mismatched duo will have to put aside their grudges, in a non-stop concerto for bullets.

IMDb: 7.0

Potatometer: Critics 39%, Idiots 69%

Should you’ve read my caption underneath this movie’s poster you might already know what I might think about Hitman’s Bodyguard. But Random doesn’t automatically equal bad, and I used the term Hollywood more as a geolocation thing, not as a mark of poor quality neither.

But it needs to be said: The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a mixed bag and sent us thru various emotions while watching it, not all of them positive. But let’s unravel the details and find out what makes this flick tick. 🙂

There is the very respectable cast we need to mention: Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds make a nice classical “mismatched buddies” team, although they both seem a bit .. hm, not miscast per se, but their characters are too uneven to fit the actors’ personality traits.

Come on, Deathpool and all around funny man Reynolds as a stuck up good guy, works for me only 50% of the time. Same with the worst contract killer in the universe, Jackson, who suddenly reveals his good heart. Add to that terrible dialogue and you end up with a very formulaic but still uneven film.

But before we dive into that rabbit hole let’s stick with the rest of the cast for a second here, ok? Elodie Yung, Richard E. Grant, Gary Oldman and Salma Hayek were all badly underutilized but did their best to fill their small roles with as much life and quality acting as possible.

But while Gary Oldman’s character made absolutely no sense and he stayed pale as the main villain, Salma Hayek was a fukn joy to watch and revealed as much or even more than the screenplay did allow for her sideshow character. Great appearance!

Our two leads did .. what they always do: Jackson played Jackson and Reynolds played Reynolds. Both delivered on their usual level, and they can’t be blamed for a fukn weak screenplay, can they?

So, as you’ve read in the plot summary this crime caper is a formulaic as can be. Together with a holey script The Hitman’s Bodyguard could only be saved by a great ensemble, check, and great humour, ho-hum, and of course super action scenes. Check as well.

Yes, indeed, a ridiculous story like in this movie, with plotholes as big as the universe far far away, The Hitman’s Bodyguard could’ve done with some a lot more humour and less seriousness.

Unfortunately most of the jokes/gags were not very funny but forseeable and/or too random to appear clever in any way.

And the action? Yeah, hm, while done very competently (particularly the powerboat chase) it was nothing we’ve not seen before, and more funny/better, in other movies.

As you might have gathered by now, The Hitman’s Bodyguard is just another flick in a looong long loong row of movies suffering from bad screenwriting, resulting in a product that can’t decide what it is. The completely unnecessary and highly unmotivated and nonsensical political aspect was for me the final nail in its coffin.

A head of state, a president, who goes around shooting people, and who’s henchman setting up a huuuge operation to grab him out of the International Court of Justice in DenHaag? Highly unlikely. Not even the Serbs did that for Milosević.

And, why all of a sudden, is Belarus a banana republic with a murderous bastard at the helm? Ah, I get it: They are not revolting but remaing part of the union and still siding with Russia. And they are doing soo much better than the Ukraine or all the Baltic mofos and wannabe future NATO members, so they must be the bad guys. Right?

People, everybody’s free to have their own opinion about politics n stuff, but why did the film producers feel the need to lie to the audience and sell us such thinly veiled bad propaganda? It’s aggravating.

Yes, that was probably my strongest criticism of this movie. All the other negative points are pretty much standard these days, so we can’t complain too much. But such blatant hate, such blankfaced lies to lull the American public into the “inevitable WW3”, which must be started because of all the Chino-Russo aggression? That’s a bit much for my taste.

Couldn’t they have made Gary Oldman’s role a mafia boss/drug smuggler or something? It would have made the script more believable and funny and we could’ve enjoyed this mediocre flick for what it was.

CONCLUSION:  The Hitman’s Bodyguard is one of those typical star vehicles that’s here today, gone tomorrow. It’s unremarkable in every aspect but one: The hurtful political blunder renders it downright unacceptable!

WATCH IT? Only with bad friends and totally drunk will you have a reasonably good time.

WHAT DID THE YOUTUBER’S SEE?

IGN found the same reasons to nitpick as Orca did. Now let’s find out what the hivemind of our irreplaceable duo of cool guys thinks:

Enuff of the guys, now let’s hear some voice of reason:

And another girl:

What do you guys think? Was I too harsh on this movie? Have my political sensibilities taken me too far off? Can’t I just see a silly movie for what it is anymore … or am I seeing too clearly???