How does one evaluate the successful exercise of a familiar formula? The Hitman’s Bodyguard is so formulaic—and so completely unsurprising in the ways it ably fulfills every requirement of the buddy-action-comedy genre—that it’s both a great movie and a terrible movie. Like a meal at the Cheesecake Factory, it is filling and unsatisfying. One can’t help but mourn how little The Hitman’s Bodyguard tries when even just a few sparks of inspiration could have elevated it to something special. Even the title is desperately unimaginative.
Thirty years ago, a movie like this would have arrived with a title like Cruel Target or Maximum Weapon. They probably would have found someone a little more grizzled for the white-guy character; The Hitman’s Bodyguard has Ryan Reynolds. He’s supposed to be a world-weary “executive protection agent” who’s lost his girlfriend and his career after a botched job, but whenever he grimaces—which he does a lot, provoked either by feelings or bullets—he merely looks bummed, like a guy who just woke up after a frat party with dicks drawn on his face.