Amsterdam

The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2017)

“Get Triggered,” commands one of the movie posters for Patrick Hughes’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard. I don’t know what that means here, but this film is a bit fluffy to trigger much more than some chuckles — after all the eyerolling, of course. That’s how it went for me.

Ryan Reynolds is Michael Bryce, a humiliated professional bodyguard whose career took a hit — get it? — after a client (Tsuwayuki Saotome) was shot and killed right in front of him. Now, he barely ekes out a living guarding low profile corporate executives addicted to speed. He operates out of his run down car, which is where he also lives (as evident from his “bathroom,” an empty water bottle). To make matters worse, Michael is still reeling from a breakup with Amelia (Élodie Yung), an Interpol agent he blames for his sad state.

Amelia is charged with a simple but very consequential mission: to deliver notorious hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) to the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Darius has agreed to testify against Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), the depraved dictator of Belarus on trial for crimes against humanity. Unfortunately for the prosecution, Dukhovich has a stalwart and invincible army of goons that hunts and kills any witness who has any dirt on him. Darius is the prosecution’s last hope, and the clock is ticking.

When Amelia’s armored car is attacked by Dukhovich’s men, she and Darius go into hiding. She contacts Michael for a favor: to complete the mission and get the star witness to the Hague. She doesn’t tell him who the witness is, and it turns out that Michael and Darius have a history. It ain’t pretty.

Not surprisingly, The Hitman’s Bodyguard is light fare, a stock comedy/action quasi buddy flick. It’s a perfect summer movie; frankly, I’m not sure why it wasn’t released earlier. Tom O’Connor’s screenplay is repetitive, predictable, and loaded with F-bombs, but it’s fun and isn’t at all serious. Reynolds and Jackson have an amusing love/hate relationship filled with banter about everything from murder to love to pop music that wouldn’t be out of place in Pulp Fiction. In between their banter is nonstop action — car chases, explosions, shoot outs in helicopters and boats, cat and mouse games.

Jackson does what he does best: causes grief and cusses with force. Reynolds plays a good square with earnestness. If these two had better chemistry, The Hitman’s Bodyguard would be a more memorable film. Salma Hayek is the best thing about this movie: she’s dramatic and severe and hilarious as Sonia Kincaid, the streetwise but still crazy wife of Darius. Rotting away in an Amsterdam prison, she’s relentless about protesting the grave injustice done to her. She effortlessly steals every scene she’s in.

With Michael Gor, Tine Joustra, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Rod Hallett, Joaquim de Almeida, Kirsty Mitchell, Richard E. Grant

Production: Millennium Films, Cristal Pictures

Distribution: Lionsgate Films

118 minutes
Rated R

(ArcLight) C+

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T2 Trainspotting

Link posted on by moviebloke

(UK 2017)

“You’re a tourist in your own youth.”

—Sick Boy

“Face your past. Choose your future.” That’s what the poster for T2 Trainspotting says. Perhaps it should say, “Paybacks are a bitch,” something Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) finds out pretty quickly when he returns home to Edinburgh after 20 years in Amsterdam following his little fuckover at the end of Trainspotting. Ostensibly back to make amends and settle his debt, Renton knows that forgiving and forgetting isn’t so easy—or smooth. Truth be told, he probably didn’t expect it to be.

Renton finds Spud (Ewen Bremner) unemployed, still struggling with heroin, and literally killing himself—like, alone with a plastic bag over his head in his dingy apartment. Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) is a full-fledged douche, complete with a failing bar—the Port Sunshine—that he inherited from his aunt, a blackmail sex scam he runs on the side with a Bulgarian partner—Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova), whom he fancies as his girlfriend—and a seriously unflattering coke habit. Oh yeah, he’s still bleaching what he’s got left of his hair. Neither is stoked about Renton showing up, but Sick Boy is clearly more bitter than Spud. He has a plan to get even.

Soon, however, Renton and Sick Boy are up to their old tricks, nightclubbing, tripping, and yes, thieving. In one of T2‘s best scenes, they head somewhere outside Edinburgh and hit a pub that looks more like an American VFW hall. It’s some weird open mic night for a crowd of Protestant Unionists who are rabidly anti-Catholic because of history. Explaining it all to Veronika in the car before the heist—the plan is to pickpocket as many ATM cards as they can get their hands on—Renton calls them “relics.” After a successful mission, the bouncer won’t let them leave until they perform a number. What they come up with is brilliant.

The fun and games come to a grinding halt when Begbie (Robert Carlyle), who’s serving a 25-year prison sentence and is denied parole because of his anger management problem, breaks out of jail and runs into Renton. He loses his shit in yet another great scene. Renton gets away for the moment but Begbie is on his trail, which leads him to a sketchy business partnership. Will history repeat itself?

I was skeptical when I heard director Danny Boyle was making a sequel; I guess I thought Trainspotting didn’t need a follow up. T2, which is loosely based on Irvine Welsh’s 2002 novel Porno, lacks the youthful vigor of the original and frankly isn’t as cool. How could it be? It wouldn’t exist without Trainspotting; it’s got flashbacks and obligatory references, some more clever than others, throughout. Kelly Macdonald has a fun cameo, Renton’s “Choose Life” monologue is updated, that toilet makes a brief appearance, and there’s a nice remix of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” at the end (and yes, we know it’s coming).

Still, T2 stands on its own. It’s fueled by nostalgia and revenge, which in this case turns out to be a rather interesting combination. T2 has more of a conventional plot, and it’s oddly fascinating. The dialogue is every bit as wickedly sharp as before. These boys have grown up—they’ve turned into sad men because they’ve chosen unfulfilled promise and disappointment (to use Renton’s words). Now they have to deal with it, which isn’t what I imagined them doing in 20 years—if they even lived, which they most definitely have. Surprise! We all know someone like this, right? I would see T2 again.

At a post screening discussion, Boyle said he really made an effort to connect to the original. He succeeded, in a good way. As for the title, he said it’s an homage of sorts to Terminator director James Cameron, whom the characters would simultaneously want to honor and piss off.

With Shirley Henderson, Scot Greenan, Pauline Lynch, James Cosmo, Eileen Nicholas, Irvine Welsh

Production: Film4, Creative Scotland, Cloud Eight Films, DNA Films, Decibel Films

Distribution: TriStar Pictures

Screening followed by a live Q and A with Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh moderated by Richard Roeper

117 minutes
Rated R

(AMC River East) B

Chicago International Film Festival

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