Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (2021)

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

This will definitely make my list of “Most Unnecessary Sequels of All Time”.

Summary

Michael Bryce (Reynolds) attends an awards show for bodyguards and wins the coveted “Triple-A Bodyguard of the Year” award. Shortly after, everyone at the awards ceremony turns into his nemesis, and hitman, Darius Kincaid (Jackson). As they all laugh at him, Bryce gets haunted by his failure to protect Kurosawa from the first film as Kincaid shoots him right in front of Bryce.

This all turns out to be a dream that Bryce has once a night, as he explains it to his therapist. In two weeks, he has to go in front of a committee of sorts to see if he can get his “Triple-A” rated license back. However, what is hurting his chances is the fact that he saved Darius’s life in the climax of the first film. His therapist tells him to take a break from “bodyguarding” and go on vacation to Capri (“…like the pants”), Italy. She also tells him to not use any guns and how he’s “graduated” from therapy. Bryce is definitely not okay, but the therapist is visibly uncomfortable from everything he tells her. In Greece, as a response to the EU’s economic sanctions on the country, terrorist Aristotle Papadopoulos (Banderas) kidnaps some high-ranking official and demands he reverse this decision. Obviously, that can’t be done, so Aristotle has his guys kill him. He promises that in four days, all of Europe’s infrastructure will fall apart and their financial markets will collapse due to some elaborate plan of his.

Bryce finally goes on his vacation but is immediately interrupted by Darius’s wife Sonia (Hayek), as she gets into a gunfight with numerous bad guys. She grabs Bryce and tells him someone has kidnapped Darius and Darius asked specifically for him to help. Bryce and Sonia escape, and Sonia explains what’s going on. Not too long ago, her and Darius decided to officially have a honeymoon since they never had one before. However, on the first night, Darius took a job and was kidnapped by the mafia. It sucks even more because they’ve been trying to have a baby. At the same time, Aristotle and his group meet up with an arms dealer for some superweapon capable of carrying out his diabolical plan. They test it in Zagreb, Croatia and it works, so he has his group kill them all and take it for free. Boston Interpol agent Bobby O’Neil (Grillo) is stationed in the area and is assigned this case in Croatia. He thinks there’s more to it than just some power grid issue that killed all of these people. Obviously, he is right. He is given a translator that’s Scottish to help him in his case.

Bryce and Sonia storm the place that is holding Darius hostage and save him. Darius explains however that he told Sonia to get “anyone but Michael Bryce” to help him. She just didn’t hear that part. As they argue, all three are then captured by Bobby O’Neil. He forces them to go undercover on a mission, with Bryce acting as Sonia’s bodyguard and her acting British. Darius is to be the protector of the money they are supposed to drop off in some job. O’Neil is reassigned as he gives this mission but has his Scottish partner carry it out. As you would imagine, the three are not on the same page and the initial mission goes awry. This leads to Michael, Darius, and Sonia on the run from Interpol after the botched mission, Bobby getting chewed out for employing the three after being reassigned and now being tasked in fixing the problem, and everyone getting closer to an eventual and inevitable showdown with Aristotle.

Why is this? Well, Sonia has a bit of a history with the man.

My Thoughts:

Besides the obvious issues of Antonio Banderas playing a Greek nationalist even though he’s the most Spanish man on the planet, and Sonia not understanding why her and Darius are having trouble conceiving (Not only is there a twenty-year age difference between Hayek and Jackson, but Hayek is 54 and Jackson is 72), but on top of everything, there are even fewer laughs here than in the first film. That’s saying something because I didn’t think The Hitman’s Bodyguard was really that funny. It had its moments, but it wasn’t anything crazy. As big of a disappointment that the first film was, I can still confidently say it was better than Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.

The chemistry was still a plus. It was still funny to watch our three leads argue, and Reynolds still holds all the funny lines, but after that, the trouble starts. They stripped away everything I liked about the Michael Bryce character. Because of his therapist, he refuses to use guns and his character is even more of a shell of his former self. I know this is supposed to add another layer to his character, but I didn’t think it worked. After the first few scenes, his refusal to get violent becomes kind of annoying, especially since we know how he was in the first film. Plus, it’s just unrealistic for a character like that in the situations they’re in. On paper it may be funny, but it came across as frustrating for me. After a while, you just want to yell, “Can you grow up and start shooting people!”. The best parts of The Hitman’s Bodyguard were the exploits of the unhinged shit-talker Bryce became when dealing with Darius. In this film, he’s kind of a pussy and acts like he’s appalled by everything that is going on. He’s twelve hours removed from his last therapy session. TWELVE HOURS! There’s no way he should be acting like some suburban dude from some rich neighborhood almost immediately after. It ruins his character completely for the sake of “comedy” that wasn’t even funny.

There seemed to be nothing learned of the generic villain issues of the first film either. Again, the thought process seemed to be “Okay, let’s do a terrorist this time around, and let’s get a big star to play him!”. This is essentially the same thought strategy they had with Gary Oldman in The Hitman’s Bodyguard only he was a dictator. If there was a third film, I bet you the villain would be some dastardly arms dealer! That’s how predictable this shit is getting. All they did in this sequel was change the character from a dictator to a terrorist and go from Oldman to Banderas. They try to add a subplot twist this time between Aristotle and Sonia, but I just couldn’t get into it. This is surprising too, considering how many times we’ve seen Banderas and Hayek play love interests. I’ll give them credit though because at least they tried to give something extra to the Aristotle character. Even though it didn’t work, they tried. I guess that’s something. The only interesting thing about the villain was the fact he was Greek. You have to admit, there aren’t many Greek bad guys in movies! With Salma Hayek, they give her a much bigger role this time around which on paper seemed like a good idea. However, Sonia’s constant yelling and cussing loses its appeal pretty quickly into the movie. I will admit though, it was funny when she attempts to go undercover and tries a British accent. It’s almost as funny as Antonio Banderas playing a Greek guy.

Morgan Freeman’s inclusion felt small and unnecessary, most of the jokes were stale, and the action sequences were nowhere near the first film. Even the climax was pretty predictable and not as funny as they pretended it to be. It wasn’t the goofy comedy I enjoy. A lot of it just came off as stupid.

There are some funny scenes like Bobby interacting with the three leads as they are tied up, Bryce passing out when he had a vision of saving the day, the reveal of Bryce’s dad and Bryce calling him “papa”, the ending, and everyone admitting Sonia’s backstory with Aristotle was reminiscent of 1987’s Overboard, but that’s pretty much it. This just wasn’t a group of characters worth revisiting. It might have been had it been written by someone else, but Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard was just lazy. When you consider the fact that this sequel has an even more star-studded and talented cast than its predecessor, it becomes an even bigger disappointment in my eyes.

You want to know what’s sad though? I’ll probably watch a third one if it comes out.

What is wrong with me?