The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard – A Just Dumb Sequel

The original Hitman’s Bodyguard was a divisive film amongst critics and audiences and was merely dumb fun though dumb fun is a fine line with arguably a limited shelf life. One can only go back to that well so many times and as far as The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, the sequel to The Hitman’s Bodyguard, is concerned, twice is one time too many. Despite the obvious star power in front of the camera, including returning stars Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, and Salma Hayek, this film doubles down on the dumbness and the over-the-top nature of the original but the problem with that was that it’s no longer 2017 and that formula no longer works now in 2021 or maybe those stars can no longer make up for those issues. Suffice it to say that those who didn’t like the original film will not change their minds here. This time around at least, the end result is an obnoxious mess that never aspires to be anything more than that, never offering much in the way of a plot or even bothering with the action sequences, and instead tries way too hard to be outrageous which was just irritating more than anything else.

As mentioned, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard doesn’t offer much in the way of plot while the film’s title is kind of misleading as it is essentially a series of increasingly ridiculous tropey situations involving our hitman Darius Kincaid (Jackson), his wife Sonia (Hayek), and the bodyguard Michael Bryce (Reynolds) tied together by a nonsensical plot that didn’t really matter and that most audiences will probably forget very quickly so there’s no point in saying anything more about it. Like each other or not, they certainly didn’t, they and their eccentric relationship would unsurprisingly be tested as they would have to work together. Hijinks ensued as Bryce often found himself out of his depth in situations that were usually two against one. That combative contrast was done to death for comedic effect which only got old very fast. The obnoxious nature of the characters made those scenes tiresome to watch so of course there were a lot of them.

If it wasn’t already clear, the why of it all is not important here. If anything, at least the film knows what it is. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is all about Bryce and the Kincaids riffing off of each other but the problem with that was that it was simply not funny at all as the bad dialog and direction makes them come off as obnoxious which only distracts from everything else going on. Along with the story going virtually nowhere (despite going out of its way to inform viewers of all the locations the characters visited), it was just hard to care for anything at any point whatsoever. Unlike the first film which was dumb fun, this sequel was just dumb with virtually no point to anything, seemingly being satisfied with only being a retread of the original, which only got worse and more tiresome as the film went on because it simply doesn’t work this time around. Meanwhile, the action also left much to be desired, choppily going through the paces of a generic 1990s action film.

That being said, the best part of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, just like the original film, is its performances. Bad material aside, Reynolds, Jackson, and Hayek are clearly having a blast as Bryce and Darius and Sonia Kincaid respectively and maybe there’s some fun to be had from that. If anything, they and their chemistry keep the film watchable in spite of its flaws but it’s hard to not want more from it. Antonio Banderas as the film’s villain Aristotle Papadopolous is something to say the least while Morgan Freeman’s casting is suspect.

At the end of the day, despite what has been said here, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is sure to be a divisive film that will find audiences on either end of the spectrum and that’s okay but one film was enough.

still courtesy of VVS Films

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.