To expand upon my quick thoughts in the video, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is an action-comedy film directed by Patrick Hughes and stars Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Salma Hayek, and Richard E. Grant, reprising their roles from the previous film, with Frank Grillo, Tom Hopper, Antonio Banderas, and Morgan Freeman joining the cast. Taking place an unspecified amount of time after the first film, the story follows Michael Bryce as he is taking a break from bodyguarding. While on vacation he is found by Sonia Kincaid who needs his help in saving her hitman husband Darius after he is taken by mobsters.
The best part about this film is that it is flat-out hilarious. Mostly all of the jokes land and the chemistry between the three stars works. The film definitely earns its R rating with Salma Hayek delivering some of the most vulgar jokes. Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson are also great at showing how teamwork is handled by people who strongly dislike each other. Their unique chemistry carries over effortlessly from the previous film. The supporting characters are fine though they are barely given much to do. Frank Grillo’s Agent O’Neill could have been played by any actor, though Grillo does a good job hamming it up; doing his job only so that he can get back to Boston. The role should have gone to Élodie Yung, as she was also an Interpol agent in the first film. Antonio Banderas is very kooky as the main villain Aristotle Papadopoulos. His character has ties to Darius’s wife, which eventually makes for a hilarious joke about the 1987 classic Overboard. Morgan Freeman is also great as Michael Bryce Sr. but the twist involving his character while funny, felt a little forced.
As far as the plot, the film barely has one. It’s pretty much a spoof of an early James Bond film. There’s an eccentric villain trying to get their hands on a unique weapon that can devastate the economy of Europe and it’s up to our trio to stop them. It seems that the heroes actually luck their way into even completing this plan with so many conveniences dropping right into their laps. Much of the nuance for Darius and Michael’s characteristics from the first film is gone. There is no mention of the fact that Darius is a hitman that only kills bad people or Michael’s relationship with Agent Amelia Roussel. Darius is now just a wanted hitman and Michael a former bodyguard. The characters are very flat this time around and harder to care about when they do terrible things.
The film is paced very quickly moving from one joke to the next and from one location to another. Nothing of consequence happens to the characters from beginning to end. This in a way actually helped the plot because if it was any slower it would have been a worse movie. There is also some terrible CGI that had no reason to be terrible. It feels as if there were some reshoots and they couldn’t get the actors back to the location to shoot. This could have been a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, but it still could have been a little more polished.
Overall, the film is not as good as the previous installment, but surprisingly a lot funnier. I give The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard a Solid 5/10. If it makes as much money as the first film, I can see a third film being commissioned. Perhaps they can tie it in with The Bodyguard and cast Kevin Costner.