Bodyguard Michael is demoted following the assassination of a client he was supposed to protect, which also negatively affects his relationship with Amelia. The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) is holding a trial against Belarus dictator Dukhovich, but all the witnesses keep getting killed before they can testify. The last witness, assassin Darius, is thus released from jail, and Michael is assigned to protect him so that Darius can testify at the court. Dukhovich’s henchmen organize a huge attack on Michael and Darius across the Dutch cities, but Darius is able to arrive to The Hague and testify against Dukhovich, as well as meeting up again with his wife from prison, Sonia.
This unusual action ‘buddy comedy’ works mostly due to the chemistry of its two lead actors, the charming Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, as well as a couple of incredible action stunts. In one notable action highlight, playing out in Amsterdam, two cars chase each other, but then the one driven by Darius turns around, and drives in reverse along the canal, they go up an alley, until the two cars eject on a highway—but the second one, with the bad guys in it, is immediately hit by a truck. Even though it juggles with a topic of a dictator on trial in front of the International Criminal Court, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” is a non-political and unambitious film, a simple comedy that does not take itself seriously and is instead just there for the anarchic fun of it all, and the director Patrick Hughes has a good sense of keeping the pieces of the disparate story together, even giving the viewers a treat in the form of exotic European locations. Its pace is a little too fast, though, almost frantic, to such an extent that one wishes it showed more confidence in its quiet parts, slowed down and just enjoyed some of its moments longer, instead of treating them as throw-away material that is just there to keep the viewers’ attention with flashy effects. It’s as if many of the scenes just don’t have a weight to them, except for being loud.
Some of the dialogues are witty (“He is a coffin magnet”; “You know what they say: when life gives you shit... you make Kool-Aid!”), whereas Salma Hayek has a field day as the feisty Sonia, in the 2nd best sequence of the film, the stylish bar fight where she takes Darius’ beer bottle, drinks it, and then uses the empty bottle to smash the head of some criminal she was holding with her other arm. But the main prize for the no. 1 sequence of the entire film goes to a contagiously funny sequence that the viewers will find the better the more they rewind it. It plays out some 91 minutes into the film, and is filmed, intermittently, in two one-minute long takes, and features a waiter taking food from the stove, as the camera follows him glamorously exiting the kitchen to serve the guests of a restaurant, while this is contrasted with a reverse camera shot of Reynolds’ character Michael unglamorously rushing into the place to hide into the kitchen. Two assassins are right behind him, they smash open the door of the kitchen—but he is safely inches away from the swinging door, and then smashes them back shut, blocking one of the villains. This chase continues in a hardware store, where the lyrics of the cheerful song “Little queenie” by Chuck Berry are in a hilarious contrast with Michael trying to save his life by throwing various tools at the invincible assassin who just cannot be stopped, and thus at one point we have the lyrics going “...Looking like a model on the cover of a magazine...”, while the said assassin has a nail on his forehead, but just continues charging at Michael: comic pandemonium. Too bad the rest of the film never reaches a quarter of such sheer extraordinary fun of the said two sequences, but it is still good fun, nonetheless.
Grade:++
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