The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard review: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L Jackson film is two hours of inanity

Language: English If there ever was a doubt about Ryan Reynolds’ witty, self-deprecating, bursting with pop-culture references persona becoming less fun after Deadpool 2, then The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is further confirmation. The actor, who reinvented his career by making fun of his less-successful exploits with the help of a superhero who repeatedly breaks the fourth wall, has witnessed a new wave of stardom and adoration on social media. But the novelty has worn off, and the party seems to be over. For now, at least. It’s telling how Reynolds, who many couldn’t stop gushing about for the clever marketing blitz around the first Deadpool, can’t elicit a single laugh in nearly two hours. A sequel to 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard , which was mildly fun because of the discordant banter between Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson, the 2021 film offers absolutely nothing. We get more of Reynolds’ Oh-look-at-me-try-so-hard hero, Jackson’s familiar profanity and a fully unhinged Salma Hayek looking to have some fun on a movie set. Alas, Jackson and Hayek’s filthy banter becomes painful to endure pretty quickly. It all begins with Michael Bryce (Reynolds) not having moved past the events of the first film. He sees Samuel L Jackson’s Daruis Kincaid in his nightmares. A therapist suggests he take some time off from “bodyguarding” and focus within. “Within what?” asks Bryce, given Reynolds’ inability to let a minute pass without trying to provoke a laugh. A few scenes later Bryce is intercepted by Sonia Kincaid (Hayek) to help rescue Darius, who happens to have been taken by the mob. Why should he help her? “He asked for you,” Sonia tells Bryce. She might as well have screamed “cos it’s a goddamn sequel” and even that would’ve seemed less contrived. There’s Antonio Banderas playing a Greek ‘high roller’ named Aristotle, who wants to destroy Europe by ‘uploading a virus’, in a bid to stop another round of EU’s economic sanctions on Greece. In his introductory scene, he lectures an EU official on how Greece offered civilisation to the world, and how it ‘took him in’. There’s a minute when the film hints at an unexpected direction, and right then we cut back to Reynolds’ clueless face where he talks… and keeps talking. Another wisecrack, a wink at the audience, another instance where he practically sticks a finger in the audience’s face to say “Did you notice the genre subversion?” It’s just no fun.

There’s a cameo by Morgan Freeman, which seems promising to begin with. The track even achieves some of its potential, thanks to Jackson’s stare of disbelief. However, in the end it turns out to be as insipid as the rest of the film. And it’s a real shame, cos Freeman has one of the best straight faces in a comedy scene. Even Jackson can elevate a punchline character like he showed us in the first Kingsman movie, but there’s absolutely nothing to work with here. It says so much about a film that relies on Jackson’s many iterations of “motherfucker” for laughs. Bullets are fired, cars and helicopters get blown up, filthy expletives are uttered, we cut between some beautiful locales in Italy. Nothing is felt. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is an unfortunate film born out of a studio executive’s spreadsheet. Some of us watching it in a theatre, surely wished we were watching it on our laptops instead, so we could skip the unfunny gags, the pointlessly elaborate flashbacks, and get to the end credits. Or even better, let the film play out so (*film aficionados shudder*) we can talk over it. Surely no director warrants such disrespect, but films like The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard test the limits of what is tasteful anyway.