The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard Review – Bullets and beautiful ‘F’ bombs

The Treacherous Trio return to get their freak on in ‘Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard’

Hitman’s Wife’s bodyguard is the sequel to 2017’s surprise hit action comedy ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard’. Director Patrick Hughes returns from the first movie and reunites his A list cast of Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L Jackson, and Salma Hayek for another dose of high jinks, mayhem and savagely delivered ‘F’ bombs that after a while start to sound both silly and like its own language.

The film opened last summer to very mixed reviews with some calling it a cliched and not a particularly funny comedy but It’s quite possible they have missed the point. The film was written by Brandon Murphy (who sadly lost his life earlier this month) alongside his brother Phillip. They decided to focus this sequel on Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek) as she was seen as the breakout character from the first film with fans wanted to see a more expanded role for Sonia.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been a been a committed fan of Salma Hayek since her breakout performance in ‘from dusk till dawn’ and in subsequent movies like ‘Desperado’. Up until recently, I would have said I was unable to fairly review a film with Salam Hayek due to blind loyalty. But that wasn’t true as my review for 2021’s awful movie ‘Bliss’ proved- I can be critical of Salma when necessary.

The movie begins with Sonia Kincaid seeking out the formal triple A rated bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) to help her rescue her husband, hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L Jackson) who has been captured by the mob. In truth, the storyline isn’t really that important. It’s merely creating a playground with a passable plot for these three stars to do what they do best and ‘blow some sh*t up’ in the most fun over the top way possible.

The first movie had Gary Oldman to lend a touch of villainous menace and acting credibility to the film. The sequel finds Antonio Banderas stepping into the ‘bad guy’ role and while he can’t quite bring the same level of gravatas as the legendary Gary Oldman (really, who can), he does add his own charm and intensity to his role. And of course, it was fantastic to see him reunite with his original Desperado co-star Salma Hayek over 25yrs later.

The movie moves along at a great pace, launching from one shootout and explosion to another with a few quiet moments thrown in to explain each character’s motivations. The trio are fantastic together and their constant bickering and poking at each other is great fun. It’s unusual to see Ryan Reynolds playing the ‘straight man’ in any set up but here he relishes the part of safety conscious triple A rated bodyguard, whose mottos extend to seatbelts being essential and when approaching any conflict, ‘boring being best’. The film is anything but boring, with numerous copy and paste bad guys despatched in ever more creative fashion.

The locations are beautiful, and the camera does an excellent job of capturing the lush environments to fully immerse us in the action just before it gets destroyed! Director Patrick Hughes and the cast attempted to take everything that seemed to work from the first movie and turn it up to 10.  This worked in certain areas but also left other parts feeling forced and by the numbers (insert more swear words here, insert more outrageous behaviour here). But with a movie like this who really cares, it’s just an adults violent foul-mouthed playground where anything goes.

See the official Trailer for The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard here

So, it’s not a brilliant film, is full of over-the-top caricatures, mindless violence, and bad language but its loads of fun. If that sounds like a good weekend movie to you then put your seat belts on and get lost in the silliness for 2 hours. There was plenty of baby talk in the movie so if the third part does get the go ahead, I’m sure they’ll be extending the already long title to something like ‘The Hitman’s Wife’s Baby’s Bodyguard’.

Until then, I’ll leave you with the words of Sonia Kincaid: “If you don’t help me, I am going to put my strap on and f*ck your dreams until they wish they were your nightmares”. Enjoy

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is now streaming on Prime Video