{"id":9842,"date":"2024-12-10T23:16:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9842"},"modified":"2024-12-10T23:16:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T04:16:30","slug":"the-hitmans-wifes-bodyguard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-hitmans-wifes-bodyguard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Patrick Hughes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Tom O\u2019Connor, Brandon Murphy and Phillip Murphy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Atli Orvarsson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Terry Stacey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 16, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas, Morgan Freeman, Frank Grillo, Tom Hopper, Richard E. Grant, Caroline Goodall, Alice McMillan, Rebecca Front, Gabriella Wright, Kristofer Kamiyasu.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $38M (US)\/$70.1M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong> is yet another sequel that tries to do more but ends up being less. It reminds me a lot of Beverly Hills Cop II. It\u2019s loud, profane, violent, destructive and makes no sense whatsoever. It\u2019s not a movie; it\u2019s a cinematic representation of a heart attack. At the same time, it\u2019s strangely entertaining. I didn\u2019t care much for BHC II the first time I saw it, but it grew on me. Now I\u2019m a fan. It\u2019s worlds better than the boring-ass BHC III. I feel the same about The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong>. It\u2019s enjoyable, but I suspect I\u2019ll like it more with repeat viewings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In this follow-up to the hit 2017 action-comedy The Hitman\u2019s Bodyguard, Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) and Samuel L. Jackson (The Avengers) reprise their roles as disgraced bodyguard-for-hire Michael Bryce and professional hitman Darius Kincaid. This time around, Salma Hayek (Frida) has been upgraded to major player as Kincaid\u2019s hot-tempered wife Sonia. It\u2019s been four years and Bryce still has nightmares about the incident that led to him losing his license to bodyguard. Actually, it\u2019s \u201cunder review\u201d, but let\u2019s not split hairs. His fed-up therapist (Brit comedian Front), looking for any excuse to dump her annoying client, sends him on a sabbatical to Capri to find his inner peace. He barely has a chance to settle in by the pool before fate comes calling in the form of Sonia. She snatches him up during a wild gunfight (that he\u2019s completely oblivious of) and tells him her hubby requires his services again. He\u2019s been kidnapped by the Mafia and needs saving.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Against his better judgment, Bryce helps Sonia rescue an ungrateful Kincaid who, it turns out, asked her to get anybody but <\/em>Michael Bryce. Minutes later, all three of them get snatched up by Interpol. The agent in charge, Bobby O\u2019Neill (Grillo, Captain America: The Winter Soldier), tells them they have to help him on a case or face significant jail time. He\u2019s looking to bring down a major bad guy, Greek tycoon Aristotle Papadopolous (Banderas, Desperado), with a diabolical plan to make Greece great again. He has in his possession a device- let\u2019s just call it the MacGuffin- that will help him achieve this goal. The hitman, the bodyguard and the hitman\u2019s wife are tasked with retrieving it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Remember the line in This Is Spinal Tap about the band\u2019s amplifiers going to eleven? Well, The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong> goes to 111. It\u2019s entertainment beyond top volume. The characters hardly talk; they mostly scream and shout. Everybody drives like they\u2019re trying out for the next Fast & Furious installment. Guns blast away, property is wrecked and stuff explodes. Reynolds\u2019 character sustains enough bodily injury to make him eligible for disability for the rest of his life. The violence is bloody and the body count high. The profanity never stops. That\u2019s to be expected from almost any movie featuring that Shakespeare of swearing, the ever-reliable Samuel L. Between him and Hayek, they drop more f-bombs in 99 minutes than the Germans dropped on England during the entirety of WWII. I defy you to find a single line of their dialogue that doesn\u2019t contain some variation of f***.<\/p>\n

\u00a0About the only thing in The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong> that isn\u2019t high is its IQ which remains firmly in the low-to-mid double-digits. It\u2019s dumb. However, you shouldn\u2019t feel dumb if you can\u2019t follow the plot. Albert Einstein would find it hard to follow. It\u2019s all over the place thanks to a convoluted screenplay by Tom O\u2019Connor (he wrote the first movie), Brandon Murphy and Phillip Murphy. It has holes big enough to fly the Executor (Darth Vader\u2019s ship) through. In the opening moments, the bad guy has a EU official murdered after he announces sanctions against Greece. It\u2019s never referred to again. Shouldn\u2019t this be a major plot point? I guess the makers didn\u2019t want an incidental thing like plot getting in the way of the chaos.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The chemistry between the two leads is made volatile with the addition of Hayek. She blows them both out of the water with her exaggerated performance as a Mexican spitfire who wants only one thing out of life, a family. She and Kincaid are having a hard time conceiving a child, but not for lack of trying. The idea of Sonia being a mother is best summed up when Bryce says, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t leave a Chucky doll in her care.\u201d She doesn\u2019t just get angry; she explodes in a fury of profanity and violence. If I didn\u2019t know any better, I\u2019d swear they based her character on my ex-wife with all the yelling and swearing.<\/p>\n

The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong> also co-stars Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption) in a role critics have been asked not to reveal. I\u2019ll only say he makes a fine addition to the cast, but doesn\u2019t he always? Banderas camps it up to the highest level as the Bond-like villain who talks when he should just kill. Ah yes, the \u201cTalking Killer\u201d, an always popular clich\u00e9 in international capers. It ranks right alongside fruit stands getting knocked over during chase scenes (it happens twice here). Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I) makes a rather pointless cameo. Grillo looks like he\u2019s having fun as a Boston-born Interpol agent with a strong dislike for all three \u201cheroes\u201d. As for the male leads, Reynolds is slightly less annoying than usual while Jackson does what he always does.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Please don\u2019t misunderstand me. I do like The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard<\/strong>. It\u2019s fun and funny, but let\u2019s call it what it is. It\u2019s a dopey summer action-comedy that never strays from formula. It doesn\u2019t have an original bone in its body. It has a lot of CGI that looks like CGI. It\u2019s heavy on action, violence and mayhem and light on coherence. In another words, it\u2019s summer movie business as usual. It\u2019s entertainment that doesn\u2019t require the use of one\u2019s brain. It\u2019s just what audiences need after a year-long lockdown.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hitman\u2019s Wife\u2019s Bodyguard (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 99 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Patrick Hughes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Tom O\u2019Connor, Brandon Murphy and Phillip Murphy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Atli Orvarsson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Terry Stacey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 16, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas, Morgan Freeman, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-comedies","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Hitmans-Wifes-Bodyguard.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9842"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10137,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9842\/revisions\/10137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}