Our office receptionist is both lovely and very attractive and is constantly going on dates and was talking to our Editor about where she should go out for a meal. Now London has a wealth of great restaurants and whether it’s The Ivy, Quaglino’s or The Connaught there’s no end to choose from and one of the Editors favourites is The Oxo Tower on the South Bank and it was this that he suggested to our receptionist who was a bit nervous about the date and wanted to have a few rums before she met her date. Pleased that she’d taken his suggestion the Editor went home and chatted to his wife about he’d said to the receptionist only to tell her, ‘ I suggested taking her up the Oxo Tower but she was a bit nervous and said she needed a few drinks inside her before she’d let anyone do that. So I took her to The Nags Head where she had a few mouthful of Captain Morgan’s and then she was happy to take me up on my idea’. Once again the Editor is sleeping in the spare bedroom cowering in fear.
Perhaps his fear is not as it would be if he had the world’s greatest assassin after him which in The Hitman’s Bodyguard is Samuel L Jackson. Jackson trots out his usual schtick here liberally using his favoured MF swear word which peppers just about every single line he utters. The spin her is that the assassin needs a body guard who turns out to be Ryan Reynolds , once one of the top bodyguards in the world who loses his triple AAA rating when a high profile client is assassinated. Jackson, who’s banged up in prison, has a corrupt war criminal dictator, played by Gary Oldman sporting his best East European accent, after him . Oldman’s dictator is facing trial for war crimes and Jackson is a vital witness who must get to the international court of justice by 5pm otherwise Oldman walks free.
So Reynolds escorts Jackson and what follows is a spin on the mismatched buddy action film with Reynolds trotting out his smart ass quips playing against Jackson’s jive talking MF and he’s not the only one to cuss his way through the film. Salma Hayek as Jackson’s wife is astonishingly foul mouthed in the role though she is one of the best things about it especially in a flashback scene where Jackson watches, her utterly smitten, as she lays waste to some thugs in a bar brawl. It’s one of the many competently shot action scenes by director Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3). Essentially this is a bunch of set pieces with some that work very well, a car chase set to the Black Beauty TV theme, a fight in a hardware shop, and some are very funny moments notably Jackson’s inability to stay out of trouble as Reynolds stands at a street food stall bemoaning his lot in life as all manner of carnage ensues in the background.
Despite all this it does start to drag a little towards the inevitable ‘will they or wont they’ get to the court in time climax. It’s a decent enough Saturday night film which hops around the world inexplicably taking in Coventry of all places but all the stars are coasting it here and this is another film which Oldman seems to be doing for the paycheque though we’ll soon be seeing him stretch his dramatic chops with as Churchill in the forthcoming ‘Darkest Hour’. As for Jackson this is his third film this year and continues to be the hardest working man in film.
Here’s the trailer…….
