Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson reunite for a frenzied buddy movie directed by Patrick Hughes, who helped Sylvester Stallone on Expandable 3. The character of Ryan Reynolds, a professional bodyguard, must escort one of the most fearsome hitmen on the planet (Samuel L. Jackson) to testify against a dictator (Gary Oldman).
A fun and uninhibited killing:
Let's be clear, Hitman & Bodyguard is a totally uninhibited entertainment. It is imperative to disconnect your brain before entering the room. Buddy-movie par excellence, Hitman & Bodyguard does not bother with a deep scenario or even a credible minimum. The weaknesses of the film are the same as classic blockbusters. Unreal situations, epileptic editing and without much innovative idea, caricatured characters, lazy morality, etc… However, Patrick Hughes manages to use these weaknesses to his advantage by fully assuming the uninhibited side of series B. The situations become enjoyable, the action scenes fall into a cartoonish and cocaine caricature, the stereotypical characters are surrounded by a background and enough humanity to create empathy, and the dialogues punctuated by incessant valves are enough to excite. Similarly, the actors seem to have fun parodying themselves, especially Samuel L. Jackson who overuses the "motherfucker" and the image of the roles to which he is attached. Pop music finishes punctuating a film whose tone never slows down. Patrick Hughes signs almost two hours of entertaining action, varied between gun-fight, hand-to-hand combat and scenes of chases all relatively well executed.
A lazy cinema?
Some will see it as a pretentious cinema but not lazy. Some of our friends, the detractors of Baby Driver, have compared the two films. Affirming that these two works, as different as they are, are dominated by a claim to make different entertainment, perhaps more "intellectual", but above all very visual, with a hint of irreverence. This is undoubtedly the case with Baby Driver where Edgar Wright asserts his genius, recognized by the public be it, by punctuating the action with music. Let's be clear, Baby Driver , as empty as it is on the writing, is a pop slap of beauty by its frantic pace and brilliant staging ideas. We can add to the list the cinema of Tarantino, Guy Ritchie or Matthew Vaughn. But while Vaughn and Tarantino appeal to intellectuals, Ritchie, including his latest King Arthur, is simply seen as an insignificant director with empty works. But as weak as they are on the content, their form is not to be neglected. Guy Ritchie and Patrick Hughes , with Hitman & Bodyguard, bring a new way of understanding action cinema.
A more uninhibited, more joyful, less serious angle. This approach makes it possible to de-dramatize the subject, to offer an enjoyable and non-dramatic violence, all wrapped in a realization more focused on video games. Some crash completely, like the last Die Hard, others do it better like Deadpool. Hitman & Bodyguard is part of the latter line. It stands out from the countless John Wick, Jason Bourne and other James Bond. This approach, which displeases the intellect, remains a real guilty pleasure. As Matthew Vaughn , who seems eager to direct Man of Steel 2, the continuation of the adventures of Superman initiated by Zack Snyder, recently said, his approach will be much lighter. He intends to turn away from this dark tone that dominated Batman V Superman, and if the mister does not crash like David Ayer on Suicide Squad, the superheroic genre will come out grown.
Finally Hitman & Bodyguard frankly brings nothing, either in its intellectual approach or in its technique. But Patrick Hughes' film is a very entertaining and fun guilty pleasure that should inspire blockbusters with too dramatic bias.
