Review: Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (2021)

Director: Patrick Hughes

Writers: Tom O’Connor, Brandon Murphy, and Phillip Murphy

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, Frank Grillo, Richard E. Grant, Antonio Banderas, and Morgan Freeman

Plot: Bryce is pulled back into the world of body guarding after Darius is kidnapped by the mob.

Review: I gotta be honest. I’m not a fan of this franchise. After the trailers for the first one failed to gain my interest, I put off watching it for the next four years. Honestly, I probably would’ve never seen it if it weren’t for my “obligation” to eventually see this one and write up this review. Even all of this week, knowing I had to see it before the weekend, I kept finding excuses to postpone it. Then, it was honestly worse than I anticipated. I had to take a break, even if it meant canceling my already reserved showtime for the sequel. But, I made it through. And, now I’ve seen Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard and it’s… honestly a lot of the same.

So, here’s the thing. I don’t like any of these characters. I find them all to be over the top, annoying caricatures. I feel like I’m supposed to be slightly annoyed with them, but I just straight up hate spending time in this universe. That can’t be the intended result. And I don’t know what it is either. I usually enjoy all of these actors. But, there’s something about the way these characters are written that rubs me the wrong way. Reynolds’ character comes across as a whiny douchebag to me, while Jackson and Hayek are just homicidal psychopaths. The movies obviously want me to root for these guys, but I just can’t find it in me to do so. That’s a major problem.

I love a good action movie and I love a good comedy. Unfortunately though, I feel like this franchise isn’t particularly great at either. The action feels generic and boring. Instead of showing us something new, they’re just shaking the camera around and giving us CGI blood and explosions. Meanwhile, it feels like instead of writing a handful of really funny, solid jokes, they just wrote a million half-assed ones and decided all of them would make the cut. I feel like they fire off four or five jokes a minute, but only one or two hits for the entire runtime. There’s just no art or style to this at all. It’s like they got some of the biggest names and then called it a wrap. Guaranteed success right? Well, apparently it worked because now there’s a sequel.

I’m really disappointed in this franchise honestly. It shouldn’t be this bad. There are a lot of really funny, talented people signed on. At the very least, I should be having dumb fun that feels like it flies by. But, instead, I’m constantly bored and feel like these movies drag on forever. I was shocked to see that the first movie got mixed reviews. The 24% that this one has on Rotten Tomatoes seems more appropriate. And, while a lot of critics seem to think this one’s a lot worse, I’d honestly put it on par with it’s predecessor. So, I guess if you liked the first one, I think you’ll like this one too. They’re not for me though.

TL;DR: Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is an action comedy that fails to bring the action or the comedy.

Score: 4/10 (Bad)