movies The Hitman’s Bodyguard ★
S
ome movies just nail the zeitgeist, you know? It’s uncanny the way certain filmmakers have their finger so tightly on the public pulse that, even though their new release began shooting a year earlier and was written well before then, it taps into the popular consciousness on opening weekend to a practically psychic degree. The Hitman’s Bodyguard does the opposite. Can you conceive of a less appropriate moment in modern history for a tasteless, tone-deaf action laugher that mines the comic possibilities of terrorists driving trucks into crowds of innocent people and portrays allied leaders as hacks? The plot revolves around a tyrant who suggests a fictional fusion of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump — one who even attempts to obstruct justice when charges are brought against him. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see the Mooch pop up in bonus scenes in the director’s cut. I’m genuinely impressed that a director as inexperienced and evidently talent-free as Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3) was capable of doing so much jaw-droppingly wrong. His handling of the material comes off so calculatingly, provocatively offensive as to invite comparison to a late-career
Andy Kaufman bit. Except there aren’t any laughs. Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a formerly triple-A-rated executive protection agent who’s fallen on hard times since letting one of his clients get killed. Samuel L. Jackson is Darius Kincaid, a notorious hit man who, as fate and lazy screenwriting would have it, is also the guy who whacked Bryce’s client. When Kincaid has to be delivered safely to the Hague to testify against Gary Oldman’s ruthless Belarusian dictator, Vladislav Dukhovich, who’s Interpol gonna call? Reynolds, natch. You can fill in the blanks from there. The two start out with bad blood, but, before you know it, they’re best buds trading imitation Tarantino banter in one soon-to-bepulverized auto after another as members of Dukhovich’s militia mysteriously ambush them at every turn. Those generic chases and shoot-outs are necessary because, get this: We learn the militia tracked the pair using the signal from Kincaid’s cell. We’re supposed to believe a criminal mastermind doesn’t know how that works? Not only is all this indescribably tiresome, it’s also more than a tad sad to watch Jackson slum through such Pulp Fiction-derivative nonsense. Every scene plays like a middle-
ARMS DEAL This sight gag in which Jackson and Reynolds get all tangled up is about as clever and funny as this pinheaded picture gets.
school drama class trying to replicate the soaring flights of repartee between his Jules Winnfield and John Travolta’s Vincent Vega. Then there’s the plot’s central raceagainst-the-clock device. We’re supposed to believe that, if Kincaid doesn’t make it to the Hague by five on the dot, international law sets the genocidal maniac free. Seriously? That, ironically, is the funny thing about this comedy. Written by Tom O’Connor in 2011, The Hitman’s Bodyguard was originally a drama. In 2016 it reportedly underwent a frantic rewrite days before shooting. Hmm, that could explain a few things. Such as its scattershot narrative, overall cartoonishness
and general brain death. By the way, you needn’t feel too badly for Jackson. Personal finances didn’t force him to make this feebleminded film. More than 100 movie appearances, voice work in animated pictures and video games, membership in the Marvelverse and easy paychecks from commercials have made him the highest-grossing actor of all time. What’s in your wallet? Whatever it is, my advice is to leave it there. And wait for that director’s cut. Next to the people who made this, the Mooch looks like a frickin’ genius. RI C K KI S O N AK
84 MOVIES
SEVEN DAYS
08.23.17-08.30.17
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
Logan Lucky ★★★★
R
ight now, Hollywood pundits are chortling about how maverick director Steven Soderbergh failed to “change the film business” (in the words of a Hollywood Reporter headline). For Logan Lucky, his first film since 2013, the Oscar winner took the unusual step of devising his own marketing strategy. In a particularly egregious act of Hollywood heresy, Soderbergh even released a trailer — which he called a “throwback” in a New York Times interview — without testing it on audiences. That trailer tells us a lot about Soderbergh’s vision for the film; the era it harks back to is the 1970s, when “liberal Hollywood” routinely made amiable comedies about the white working class. For this downmarket country cousin to Ocean’s Eleven, a comedy about three siblings mounting an elaborate plan to rob a NASCAR speedway, the director concentrated his marketing on red states. Yet the intended audience failed to line up; Logan Lucky earned just $8.1 million in its first weekend. Why? Perhaps the choice of two new action comedies left theatergoers confused, or perhaps Soderbergh’s wacky, stylized trailer — which emphasizes the hillbilly characters’ relative dim-wittedness — pissed them off. Either way, Logan Lucky deserves a closer look. While it’s overlong and sometimes disjointed, this heist flick delivers genuinely likable characters, winning performances and solid laughs.
TRAILER CASH Driver and Tatum play brothers in crime — and blood — with an intricate plan to rip off NASCAR.
Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, whose old football injury has just gotten him fired from his construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. In need of cash so he can fight for joint custody of his beloved daughter, he decides to exploit a weakness in the speedway’s infrastructure that will allow him to, in effect, rob all the lucrative concessions simultaneously. The heist plan is ludicrously complicated, but the motley players Jimmy enlists ground the story. Adam Driver is very funny as Jimmy’s Eeyore-esque brother, Clyde, who lost
an arm in Iraq and likes to wax lugubrious about the family’s misfortune. Their speedobsessed sister, Mellie (Riley Keough), fancies herself a Fast and Furious siren. Best of all is Daniel Craig, showing crack comic timing as control-freak explosives expert Joe Bang. He has to be sprung from prison to participate in the heist, in a subplot that involves an extended, surprisingly effective “Game of Thrones” joke. Logan Lucky is a shaggy-dog story, no doubt about it, with detours that flesh out its earthy setting more than they serve its plot.
We watch Jimmy flirt with the driver of a medical van (a subtle reminder that he lacks health insurance); we cheer as an arrogant energy-drink magnate (Seth MacFarlane) gets his comeuppance. Reaching for a kind of apolitical, prounderdog populism, Soderbergh steers clear of big statements. All the characters are the brunt of good-natured ribbing, and inventive camerawork and sight gags keep things clicking along. By the time Hilary Swank shows up as a dogged FBI agent, though, the movie has already reached an emotional climax and feels like it should be over. Maybe Logan Lucky would have done better as the pilot for a prestige TV series. Its characters aren’t complex, but they grow on you, and you don’t have to enjoy NASCAR to appreciate its deep dive into the self-contained world of the speedway. Soderbergh kicked off his efforts to revive the tradition of crowd-pleasing progressive comedy with the far more successful Magic Mike. Was Logan Lucky too inauthentic to appeal to Soderbergh’s chosen target audience, or was the director’s determination to flout Hollywood marketing wisdom to blame? Perhaps the movie was simply, like the Logan family, in need of a little luck. MARGO T HARRI S O N