The Hitman's Bodyguard's Wife

 

While I’m loathe to fall back on simply reviewing whatever movie I happened to have watched before Friday, in this case a pair of movies was remarkable enough to warrant my review in this context.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017).  The original film starts things off.  Michael Bryce (Ryan “Deadpool” Reynolds) is a top level executive bodyguard in the present day.  However, his career took a hit – quite literally – when his client, Kurosawa, was abruptly assassinated despite his best, most diligent efforts to protect him, by some unknown assassin. 

Meanwhile, a particularly nasty Byelorussian dictator, Dukhovich (Gary the Old Man), is on trial in The Hague, Netherlands, for war crimes, mainly various Einsatzgruppen style massacres 60 something years after the original series.  He has managed to wipe out all witnesses, except one: a hitman, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson).  Bryce winds up escorting Kincaid across England to Dover, by ferry to Holland, through Amsterdam and then to The Hague to beat a 5 p.m. deadline to testify, otherwise the case against Dukhovich will fail and he’ll be released, presumably to resume his prior position as dictator and mass murderer – an outcome most would consider suboptimal.

Naturally, Dukhovich has some moles in the UN/Interpol hierarchy who give his Russian henchmen fairly accurate information about Bryce & Kincaid’s whereabouts at any given point, so the quest is almost a continuous shootfest of bloodshed, car crashes, explosions, etc. all the way to The Hague. 

By the way – Kincaid has a provocatively attractive wife, Sonia (Salma Hayek) whose release from a maximum security womens’ prison will be a reward for his testimony against Dukhovich. 

By now I’ve seen countless of these type of films, the most annoying being the obvious implausibility of all these crashes and deaths, clearly an orgy of CGI.   In fact, it’s so implausible it becomes de facto science fiction rather than action.  Moreover, Jackson is just as arrogant and “my dick is bigger than yours” as ever, especially having the ever-hot Hayek as his wife.  However, when the dust clears, all the casings fall, and the guns are dropped on the ground, I found it as entertaining as any of the other films of this nature and enjoyable for that reason.

The Hitman’s Wife's Bodyguard (2021).  Now Sonia is out of prison, ostensibly celebrating her honeymoon with Kincaid, which seems to be spent – along with Bryce – attempting to foil another ubervillain, Aristotle Papdopolous, a super rich Greek rich guy (Antonio Banderas) who plans on destroying Europe’s power grid with a virus from his yacht.  We also learn who Bryce’s step-father, Bryce, Sr., is…. Played by Morgan Freeman.  So here you get SLJ AND Morgan Freeman in the same film.  Not a bad combination.   The narrative begins with Bryce trying to enjoy his bodyguard license suspension in peace and quiet, predictably disrupted when Sonia shanghai’s him into rescuing Kincaid, who has been kidnapped by the Italian Mob – given a face –“Carlo” by Syrio Forel, who we know from Game of Thrones as Arya’s fencing instructor.  Carlo was the UN’s confidential source on Aristotle’s diabolical plans, so Kincaid, Bryce and Sonia wind up in the middle of the whole mess. 

Oh, need I mention that Sonia wants children, and relentlessly harasses Darius about his apparent inability to impregnate her, so the dialogue between the two is predictably saucy.  And the issue of whose eggs or whose sperm is at fault is quite explicitly discussed - as are their heroic, high octane multiple orgasm attempts to conceive.  As you might imagine, all such attempts occur off-camera, the audience treated to the subsequent bickering about her NOT missing her period.

This time around Sonia is front and center in the narrative – and it turns out she had a prior relationship with Aristotle, until she fell off his yacht, suffered amnesia, and married Kurt Russell.  Oops, wrong movie - and part of the charm of this film is explicitly acknowledging lifting the plot of the Goldie Hawn version. 

What’s a little frustrating is that, as hot as she obviously is, Hayek isn’t showing any more skin than she did in “Dusk Til Dawn” – in fact, far less, despite the fact that we know in real life she’s proud to still have such a killer figure at her current age.  For that matter, Christina Hendricks, the buxom redhead in “Mad Men”, “Tin Star”, and now “Good Girls”, doesn’t even seem to strip down to a bikini, much less nudity, despite – or perhaps because of – her obvious assets.  She had a sex (sorry, have to laugh here) scene in “Tin Star” in which she’s fully clothed.  Kind of defeats the purpose of having a voluptuous actress if she isn’t going to even get down to lingerie or a swimsuit.  Anyhow.  She does add considerably to the entertainment value of the film, so overall I’d say her presence is more enjoyable than frustrating.  I suppose if we want mainstream actresses showing skin, there’s Game of Thrones, though none of the women therein can boast such figures as Hayek or Hendricks. 

While I'm on the topic of "fake sex in movies" - though "Game of Thrones" is not a movie - there was a recent film with Jason "Ted Lasso" Sudeikis and Alison "Annie from Community" Brie called "Sleeping With Other People".  It's a fairly raunchy film with several scenes of simulated sex (always avoid alliteration).  The characters involved are partly nude, but no amount of suspension of disbelief will convince us that mainstream actors are actually having sex on camera for a film.  So it's a bit weird.  Having said so, having seen Alison Brie as semi-innocent in "Community", and Jason Sudeikis kind of too clueless to be a stud in "Ted Lasso", seeing them both take overtly provocative roles like this is a bit of a novelty.   I suppose your mileage may vary.

Will there be a third movie?  Actually, I’m still waiting for “Deadpool 3”[ Deadpool 3 release date, trailer, cast and more | The Digital Fix], which presumably would keep Reynolds busy to the exclusion of Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife’s Gynecologist.   We’ll see.