The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) - Weak story sinks Hughes' action comedy

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The poster for Mick Jackson's audience favorite The Bodyguard (1992) gets spoofed on this more or less funny poster for Patrick Hughes' The Hitman's Bodyguard

A dethroned bodyguard gets as his new assignment to secure a very competent on-the-loose assassin, who is to witness against an Eastern-European dictator.

 

The Hitman's Bodyguard is written by Tom O'Connor (Fire with Fire (2012)) and directed by Patrick Hughes (Red Hill (2010)).

Ryan Reynolds' (Red Notice (2021, VoD)) cutesy ironic star persona style lies heavily over this action comedy, which sets his minimally autistic character across from Samuel L. Jackson (Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)) letting loose as a shouting and/or laughing-his-face-off assassin. The veteran star's endearing laugh is really thoroughly used here.

The two at times have entertaining chemistry, - while in other sequences they mainly just curse each other out, because ... that's the buddy action comedy dynamic. Salma Hayek (Drunk Parents (2019)) is here as a raw, sexy and funny spice. The film doesn't lack for action, including a cool car chase in Amsterdam. But the story is regrettably quite poor, so that The Hitman's Bodyguard never becomes thrilling.

 

Related post:

 

Patrick Hughes: The Expendables 3 (2014) - Unique, bizarre, largely entertaining third action fireball

 

 

Watch the red band trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 69 mil. $

Box office: 183.4 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.65 times its cost)

[The Hitman's Bodyguard was released 10 August (Hong Kong) and runs 118 minutes. 13 companies cooperated in the financing and making of the film. Shooting took place around April 2016 in Sofia, Bulgaria and in the Netherlands, including in Amsterdam. The film opened #1 to a 21.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends at #1 and then another 2 in the top 5 (#3-#5), grossing 75.4 mil. $ (41.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 21.1 mil. $ (11.5 %) and the UK with 9.7 mil. $ (5.3 %). Hughes returned with Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021), the flop sequel with returning stars Reynolds, Jackson and Hayek. Reynolds first returned in 7 TV-series and video credits prior to his theatrical return in Deadpool 2 (2018); Jackson in Unicorn Store (2017, VoD). The Hitman's Bodyguard is rotten at 43 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

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