The Hitman's Bodyguard

I couldn't give it any other rating, the film definitely deserves five stars. The central duo was perfection, especially Samuel L. Jackson, whom I've otherwise only seen play dumb characters in dumb movies lately. This time everything worked, I loved the action scenes, the one-liners flew as fast as projectiles, there was plenty of black humor and even some romantic moments in a Honduras bar. Total satisfaction. (20/01/2018)

I can't even remember when I've enjoyed four stars this much. Admittedly the buddy element doesn't really work there, as Reynolds can't keep an eye on Jackson, who clearly could do whatever he wanted here, even with a crane, and it has a terrible selection and use of music, but where it does dominate is in the field of unapologetic action, which is plentiful in the film and great to watch. The problem with most action comedies is that they have directors forged in the comedy genre rather than the action genre, and they have to work with actors who are a lot of laughs, but getting them to kick a jacked-up hundred-pound stuntman in a way that doesn't demand suspension of disbelief just isn't possible most of the time. Fortunately, Hughes is first and foremost an action director who has experience with explosive choreography, so I can fully enjoy all the stunts, chases, and shootouts, the live streets in broad daylight, and they're multi-layered to boot. The tour de force escalation is then the chase in Amsterdam, with five elements chasing each other (goons, police, interpol, bodyguard, and hitman) using boats, motorbikes, cars, machine guns, and bazookas, not one at a time but all at once. The streets are treacherous, full of dodging civilians, cars, outdoor restaurants and bridges, and everything is used to the maximum with first-class choreography. And at the end of the film, perhaps as if out of obligation, a helicopter still sort of casually falls on a building, just to say they did. Hughes has managed to make excellent use of every dollar of his $30 million budget, and though he still hasn’t quite come up with a new Lethal Weapon in hand, it suffices for one of the most entertaining films of 2017. (07/11/2017)

At times it grinds a lot in its blend of crazy buddy comedy with serious ideas and elements (Gary Oldman's villain is too one-dimensionally psychopathic for such a lightweight film), and the pacing is uneven depending on the attractiveness of each character, but the two title characters are so entertainingly sketched and their confrontations so well motivationally set, transformative, and embellished, with a supporting character (Hayek’s) that so perfectly embodies my idea of a badass femme fatale, and the action scenes so accurately combine adrenaline with hyperbole that I can't help but hum contentedly and recommend this action flick with an A-list cast; for Samuel's sake alone, who drops one firecracker after another and delivers his third best role after Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight. 70% (22/08/2017)

Midnight Run for the new millennium... just don't expect a believable criminal plot or anything like that, because that's really not the case here. The film is just under two hours of Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, and not only their verbal shootouts and the pleasant “relax, everything will turn out well" atmosphere. However, I would cut down the length of the film, because it does not deserve slightly less than two hours and, for example, after the great escape from Amsterdam the second big action scene with a car chase was completely boring and useless, and only the brawl at a hardware store saved it. (08/03/2021)

A romp full of the best lines from start to finish. Jackson is God and Reynolds in Deadpool mode (in fact this could be a prequel). Awesome action, locations atypical. And the last time I saw such a superb chase (boat, motorbike, car) was in Jackie Chan’s Armor of God. Fucking Prague! (28/01/2018)