The Bodyguard's Hitman

Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson make quite the "Odd Couple" in director Patrick Hughes' high octane, no-holds-barred buddy action-comedy 'The Hitman's Bodyguard,' a movie in which a foul-mouthed Salma Hayek outshined (and possibly out-killed) both.  Part Quentin Tarantino and part Shane Black, THB is all fun and a reason why I love blood-soaked action comedies that don't take themselves too seriously.

 

Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a former CIA agent-turned-private bodyguard, excuse me, "protection agent" who's the best in the business.  In fact, he's "Triple-A" certified and had never lost a client, until he did which caused his impeccable reputation and career to take a steep nose-dive.  When Interpol was compromised in its efforts to escort Samuel L's assassin, Darius Kincaid, to testify against Gary Oldman's notorious dictator of Belarus at the International Court of Justice for "Crimes Against Humanity" (massacring civilians), Bryce was given a second chance for redemption and to regain his lost standing by an ex who was the lone surviving Interpol agent.  Bryce must safely deliver Kincaid while hitmen galore working for Oldman declare open season on them.  Can they survive?

 

After 'Deadpool,' it's refreshing to see Reynolds take on a more serious, straight-laced role while Samuel L gets to have most of the fun.  The chemistry between them is great, as is Salma Hayek, whom believe me you do not want to mess with.  But THB is not just your typical mindless mayhem, oh no.  It's also a tender romance (between Darius and Hayek's Sonia) set to classic love songs.  So it's really the perfect date movie if you think about it.

 

Grade: A-

 

 

The Gunslinger & The Man in Black

Few writers had as much of their works mined for movie adaptation as Stephen King.  While the prolific novelist is considered to be the undisputed reigning “Master of Horror” and deservedly so, with most of his horror stories (novels and short stories alike) translated into films and mini-series, two out of three of my favorite adaptions of his extensive body of work are actually not in the horror genre, ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ with ‘The Shining’ being the exception.  I admit I’m not the biggest Stephen King fan as far as his books are concerned (and I haven’t read most of them), but there are very few of his movies or TV mini-series I haven’t seen.  So despite the scathing reviews the critics have levied upon ‘The Dark Tower,’ I wasn’t about to break the streak.

 

Okay, so I haven’t read ‘The Dark Tower’ series either, but I figured that’s not necessarily a bad thing because I won’t be disappointed if the movie didn’t live up to the books.  TDT can be best characterized as a dark fantasy sci-fi western about Good versus Evil, a recurring theme of Stephen King’s.  In TDT we have multiple worlds and dimensions, a protagonist anti-hero in Roland Deschain (“The Gunslinger” played by Idris Elba) who’s sort of a knight in a western, and a soft-spoken evil wizard (“The Man in Black” portrayed by Matthew McConaughey) with the unpretentious name of Walter Padick.  There’s also the “boy with all the gifts,” 11-year old Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) who, as you might have surmised, holds the key to defeating “The Man in Black.”

 

TDT is a serviceable movie intended to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but in light of its disappointing box office numbers over the weekend one can only conclude that it’s ill-conceived from the start.  By not being faithful to the book and in essentially making it into a YA movie, the vociferous TDT fans are not happy, but they’re not numerous enough to make TDT a financial success anyway.  OTOH mainstream moviegoers didn't exactly embrace it with open arms either.  While TDT was the number 1 movie last weekend, its $19 million in domestic ticket sales is the lowest of any “weekend box office winner” all summer.  “Serviceable” just isn’t good enough these days.

Grade: B

"The Man in Black"?  Isn't it the Men in Black?

Lethal Beauty

Simply put, I love women who kick ass and look good while doing it.  It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about an angsty teen who slays vampires and monsters (Buffy), wet work-specializing femmes fatales who kill with their looks as much as their “very particular set of skills” (Sydney Bristow and Nikita), or comic book superheroines like the recent Wonder Woman played by Gal Gadot.  It should come as no surprise, then, that Charlize Theron’s noirish Cold War spy actioner, ‘Atomic Blonde,’ is a “can’t miss” in my book.

 

Based on the obscure 2012 graphic novel ‘The Coldest City,’ ‘Atomic Blonde’ (the name itself sounds badass, doesn’t it?) is set in 1989 Berlin during the last days of the Cold War.  Even though the Berlin Wall is about to come down and a sense of chaotic euphoria is sweeping across the land, the spy game between the East and West still rages on.   After a British intelligence agent was killed and a list of names of every western spy (the Holy Grail in spy movies) falls into the hands of the KGB, veteran MI6 trouble-shooter Lorraine Broughton (the Atomic Blonde) is sent to Berlin to recover it and uncover a suspected double agent in MI6.  Yeah, the powers-that-be pretty much dropped her into a Hornets' Nest with no safety net.

 

If ‘Atomic Blonde’ reminds you a bit of John Wick, it’s probably because they’re both directed by David Leitch, whose camerawork and continuous-shot action sequences virtually set a new standard in action movies with his brutal and hyper-kinetic style.  Like JW, AB is an unstoppable maelstrom of poetic violence when unleashed, bloody and utterly uncompromising in a world of “kill or be killed.”  Punch-stab-kick and repeat.  It’s gritty yet also a thing of sheer beauty.  While there is a semblance of a plot filled with double-crosses and belief-defying twists, it merely provides a vehicle for Theron to wield her deadly arts and to satiate our thirst for visceral violence (and a good dose of gratuitous girl-on-girl action too).  Move over, Evelyn Salt.

Grade: A