R | 1h 58min | Action, Comedy | 18 August 2017 (USA)
Remember that scene in 1993’s “In the Line of Fire” when the CIA assassin (John Malkovich) snaps at the Secret Service agent (Clint Eastwood)? “The same government that trained me to kill, trained you to protect. Yet now you want to kill me—while up on that roof, I protected you.”
“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” is a grindhouse/action/comedy version of the same setup. While not an exact role reversal, there’s delicious irony in Samuel L. Jackson playing a hitman and Ryan Reynolds playing a triple-A status executive protection professional tasked with guarding the hitman—who happens to be his longstanding, diametrically opposed archenemy. After all, said hitman has come close to exterminating said classy bodyguard with high-powered rifles 28 times.
