On paper, this film looks hilarious. In trailers, this film looks hilarious. Watching the full film… Not as hilarious as I had hoped unfortunately. I was crying with laughter at the trailers and wanted to love this film so much, but sadly I just didn’t.
Ryan Reynolds is Bryce, a triple A rated executive protection agent (read: a good bodyguard) who is disgraced after one of his clients is killed. Samuel L. Jackson is Kincaid, one of the most dangerous hitmen in the world. Kincaid is under arrest and needs to testify in court to help take down the evil dictator of Belarus, Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman). But when Kincaid’s life is threatened and nobody knows who to trust, they must turn to Bryce to help ferry him to the court on time, and in one piece.
It isn’t the newest, most exciting and definitely not the most original film ever, but there is a nice little twist of a deadly assassin needing a bodyguard, especially when the two are bitter rivals. But fairly generic story aside, this movie is boasting some great talent here and that’s probably the main drawcard for most of the audience. Ryan Reynolds is back in Hollywood’s good books after ‘Deadpool‘ and so here he plays a fairly similar character. He’s quick talking and witty, sharp and loud and pretty funny. And Sam Jackson is much the same. In fact, apart from their slightly different jobs, the two play much the same character really. Not that that’s all that much of a bad thing for them, as they’re both great. It even works for the film. The two have some great chemistry and some great banter.
Gary Oldman doesn’t get too much to do as the villain, but he does seem quite evil when he’s on screen. Salma Hayek plays Jackson’s inprisoned wife who spends msot of her scenes shouting a lot and Élodie Yung plays Reynolds’s ex-who-he-still-loves. The supporting cast is all fine, but it’s only the two stars that really shine. But sadly, that doesn’t save the film from just not being all that funny. Don’t get me wrong, I did laugh at this film. I just didn’t laugh very loudly or very much. Which is very disappointing. A lot of the comedy just seems to be these two nto getting on and insulting each other and laughing at one another and trying to one up the other. Which just isn’t all that funny. I would say there’s about 2, maybe 3, really hilarious bits in the film. The rest is only mildly chuckle-worthy.
But what about the action? This is an action comedy after all. Well, it’s pretty generic. The filmmakers obviously thought the main draw was the comedy and so the action does fall slightly by the wayside. It’s not bad per se and it does all look good, it’s just not very amazing or impressive. And the plot itself is quite generic and predictable to match. It really seems like they have just focused on making this a comedy film but that hasn’t really shown all that much. Which is a real bummer as I wanted to love this movie so much.
Overall, this is just a disappointing movie. I like the cast, the premise, the trailers. But the film just fails to be what it wants to be. It’s not the worst film ever, there are some laughs and some good action and a couple of good performances, but that just doesn’t save the movie for me. What a sad day…
JACK’S SCORE: 2/5
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