Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard follows a lot of the same beats, but in a very different way thanks to the addition of Salma Hayek. A lot of action and a lot of laughs in this entertaining and over-the-top sequel!
“The world’s most lethal odd couple – bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) and hit man Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) – are back. Still unlicensed, Bryce is forced into action by Darius’s wife, the infamous international con artist Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek). As Bryce is driven over the edge by the volatile spouses, the trio get in over their heads in a global plot and soon find that they are all that stand between Europe and a vengeful and powerful madman (Antonio Banderas). Joining in the fun and deadly mayhem is Morgan Freeman as… well, you’ll have to see.”
Director Patrick Hughes captured my attention over a decade ago with his debut feature film, Red Hill, a neo-western set in Australia. With his second film, Expendables 3, he shows he’s more than adept at filming action sequences. Hitman’s Bodyguard took me a bit by surprise, as his action-comedy style worked surprisingly well thanks to the clever writing and star-studded cast that was able to elevate the film to much more than what you may learn from the trailers. Not only did Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson have great chemistry, but the film had an interesting humor to it that I felt didn’t get nearly appreciated enough the first time around. Salma Hayek’s role in the first was indeed small, but includes a lot of those great moments that made the film so enjoyable to me, and there could not be a better way to create a sequel to that film than to have her take a front seat to the next journey of Michael Bryce and Darius Kincaid.
Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard doesn’t waste much time before getting into the heart of the story. Years after the events of the first, Michael Bryce still doesn’t have his AAA license, which is causing all sorts of turmoil in his life. After his therapist suggests taking a hiatus from Bodyguard life and go on vacation, Sonia Kincaid tracks him down to enlist his help in rescuing Darius. In this task, they all three get caught up in an international terrorist plot, with the relationship dynamic now extended to include Sonia, it causes an entirely new list of problems. One of the first film’s best traits was that relationship dynamic between Michael Bryce and Darius Kincaid. Now, with Sonia added into the mix, it’s a brand-new dynamic. Sonia is unpredictable, violent, and passionate at the same time. Her desire to make this adventure into a make-shit honeymoon with her husband and try to conceive a child, with Bryce as their ‘human luggage’, goes to show just how out of touch with reality she is, but it also demonstrates how out of touch with reality they all are. That’s the core of the adventure: a bunch of bumbling idiots saving the world, with quite a few laughs along the way. The addition of Salma Hayek as a front and center character is all they needed to ensure the film is different enough to avoid a direct re-hash of the first. She’s hilarious, bad-ass, and exactly what this sequel needed.
A perfect analogy for the differences in the first and second film can be boiled down to their antagonists. Hitman’s Bodyguard opened with a brutal murder by Gary Oldman, a savage dictator whose suffocating oppression of his people spills over into the streets of all of Europe as he’s brought to trial. In Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, Antonio Banderas plays Aristotle Popdopolous, a flamboyant James Bond-esque villain whose ultimate goal is to utilize a diamond-tipped drill on the bottom of the ocean. It’s honestly a little out there, but that’s the theme of the film, an outlandish story with unqualified heroes that if nothing else serves to make its main character, Michael Bryce, suffer endlessly, and so far, that hasn’t gotten old.
For the most part, the increased absurdity of the humor works in the sequel, but the story puts all its focus on the trio, making any secondary characters severely lacking in development, which I think plagued the first film as well. The love interest of Bryce in the first just isn’t mentioned, and the Frank Grillo character of Interpol agent Bobby O’Neill is just poorly written and developed. We don’t know whether to think he’s good or bad, and in the end don’t even care, as all he wants to do is get back to Boston. I would normally be more critical of the lack of B-story in a film, but the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek was so engaging and so funny, that spending more time with the three of them could never be a bad thing.
Video
Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is presented in 2160p 4k Ultra High Definition Widescreen 2.39:1 featuring HDR and Dolby Vision. The Dolby Vision is exquisite, with the dynamic metadata providing the best possible look to each sequence. There are some very bright and vivid sequences in this that are breathtaking, a field in outdoor Italy for one, which is the perfect embodiment for the advantages of 4k. The greens of the grass are brilliant and vivid, with deep and accurate flesh-tones combined with the blood on the skin, just makes the transfer stand out. The outdoor scenes are pretty much all like this, with other darker sequences also looking quite impressive with the deep darks the 4k transfer can deliver.
Audio
The Dolby Atmos track is quite impressive as well. We’ve got quite a lot of pure dialogue scenes in which the relationship dynamic of the trio provides a ton of laughs, but also some highly intense action sequences that take full advantage of the Atmos features. Bullets streaking by, Helicopters buzzing overhead, you’re entirely immersed in the action, which all sounds very well-balanced, ensure crisp and clear dialogue from the center channel.
Special Features
- Ryan, Sam, Salma: One F’d Up Family
- Gone Soft: The New Michael Bryce
- Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard: #StuntLife
- One the Set of Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard
- Gag Reel
- Theatrical Trailers
Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard delivers a lot of action and a lot of laughs. Although I think I personally prefer the first film, the addition of Salma Hayek to the main cast makes it pretty damn close. Along with the main humor, it’s the subtle absurdity that wins me over every time on these films, and I for one hope we get to see Michael Bryce suffer again.
