The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

This review may contain spoilers!

 

 The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is the sequel to 2017 audience-favourite, The Hitman's Bodyguard, a feature that capitalises on Reynolds increasing expansion into the world of action-comedies. In this follow-up, bodyguard Michael Bryce finds his career in tatters after working hit hitman Darius Kincaid and decides to go on a self-help bender in Capri. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned when he is pulled back into the chaotic world of, well, world saving by Darius' wife, Sonia. The pair go on a personal mission to rescue Darius which spirals into a race against time to stop all of Europe's power grid being decimated by terrorist, Aristotle Papadopolous (yep, that's really his name). What the film lacks exceedingly in plot it does make up for with some key moments of comedy; often the more chaotic the dialogue and the ideas are the more jokes manage to land well. The cinematography for the film is actually very slick for almost the entirety of the time; the action looks a step up from the first film and there are only a handful of dialogue-based scenes that don't look great. The stunt work for the film is stunning, there is a massive quantity of vehicle-based work that actually looks and moves great.

 

Ryan Reynolds, who played Michael Bryce, takes a while to find his stride back into the character but is once again a pretty solid protagonist; Reynolds has fun with being the straight edge to Jackson and Hayek's more unpredictable performances. Morgan Freeman, who played Bryce Senior, is such a fun reveal as the father who welcomes his son in need home; Freeman plays well to both the caring side of his role and the effective elite bodyguard aspect too. Frank Grillo, who played Bobby O'Neill, is very entertaining as the loose cannon Interpol agent; Grillo's intense lack of interest for the roles and pining for his Boston home made him a fine new attachment to the cast.

However, the best performance came from Salma Hayek, who played Sonia Kincaid. Hayek was the sort of character who stole the show despite her lack of screen time in the first film, so capitalising on that character in the sequel might be the smartest thing the writers ever did. Hayek is absolutely wild in this film, every colourful insult you could ever think of is not enough to cover the long list of strongly delivered barbed quips we get in this feature. The fun thing with Sonia is that you can never quite predict how she'll act or react in a scene; she can be an extremely affectionate wife one moment, a bezerker with a gun and a jealous cussing lover the next. Hayek really has fun with her role's desire to be the mother and the complete lack of knowledge around what that role entails. This is a character who is a joy to watch and Hayek is carrying the comedic talent of the movie consistently.

Sometimes you watch a sequel that was clearly greenlit without there really being much of a plan or story in place for what the sequel should be or look like. The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard follows a lot of the same character relationships and narrative beats as the last film without ever really finding the fun or joy behind those moments. Bryce and Kincaid had this excellent love/hate rivalry turned friendship in the first film but in the sequel all of that has been stripped away to build up to the same exact same end result. The overall villainous plan of a Greek terrorist destroying all of Europe's power grid except for Greece, in a bid to restore the nation as the heart of civilisation gets very convoluted. The film just really has no interest in its own story or how said story is delivered, for that reason we get very boring Interpol agency characters hamming out the plot against the villain while our heroes bicker over their respective personal journeys. Darius and Sonia wanting to have a kid together feels like an uncomfortable joke which definitely ends in a bad punchline. More than that, seeing Bryce, the protagonist, being so tired and disinterested in being involved in everything going on around him actually doesn't work in favour of the film. Having both Bryce and the Kincaids as reluctant heroes makes the audience feel disconnected from the stakes of what we're watching. The soundtrack for the film felt like an amateur playing darts, there were a couple of really funny tracks but most of the music missed the mark and failed to lend humour to a scene.

 

Samuel L. Jackson, who played Darius Kincaid, looks almost bored to be in this film and you can't really blame him; Jackson's character doesn't actually get anywhere near as much to do in this film and has even less time spent examining his character. Antonio Banderas, who played Aristotle Papadopolous, is a dreadful antagonist every step of the way; not only does the character have exceedingly shallow motivations but Banderas is far from convincing as a Greek national. Tom Hopper, who played Magnusson, is the generic henchman antagonist this time around; Hopper's role is styled as the perfect bodyguard which makes for a very two-dimensional performance. Caroline Goodall, who played Crowley, is the overseeing Interpol head who deals exposition with little emotion or interest; Goodall's emotionless delivery makes her just as interchangeable as the other two head intelligence actors from the first film.

 

It can be hard to generate a good action-comedy sequel and this film fails spectacularly with a dull plot and a cast that doesn't seem very engaged with the feature. I would give The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard a 4/10.