THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD

THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD again teams up unlicensed bodyguard Michael Bryce with his rival, hitman Darius Kincaid, and Kincaid’s crazy wife, Sonia, as they go up against an angry Greek nationalist who’s mad at all the nations in the European Union for their treatment of Greece and has an evil plan to destroy Europe’s whole electrical grid and kill a bunch of people. A sequel to the 2017 action comedy title THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD, THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD has many comical twists and constant action, but the pace is too frenetic and filled with rampant, sometimes bloody, gun violence, abundant “f” words, and some other crude or lewd dialogue and content. All the negative content renders THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD excessive and unacceptable.

As the movie opens, Bryce is having nightmares of Kincaid coming after him. He desperately wants to get his bodyguard license restored, but his therapist is tired of hearing him talk about his bodyguard license. She suggests he take a vacation, stay away from guns and spend time to relax and think about his future. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be a bodyguard. Bryce agrees with her advice, and she tells him not to come back, his therapy is over.

Cut to Bryce relaxing by a pool at a resort. Suddenly, Kincaid’s wife, Sonia, interrupts his peace and quiet. She has a gun, and some men are chasing her. After a frantic chase, Sonia tells Bryce that her husband, Darius, has been kidnapped. They need his help.

Sonia and Bryce locate the criminal hideout where a gangster intends to have his men torture and kill Darius. Bryce wants to sneak into the hideout to rescue Darius, because he’s still intent on avoiding guns, like his therapist advised. However, Sonia goes in guns blazing. They kill all the gangsters and untie Darius. However, Darrius is upset because Sonia misunderstood his instruction when he called her for help. He tells Sonia he actually said, “Get help from someone. . . anybody BUT Michael Bryce.”

While the three misfits are arguing, O’Neill, an Interpol agent from America who hates Europe and wants to return home, arrives with his team. He’s upset with Bruce, Darius and Sonia for killing all the gangsters. The head gangster was an informant who was going to give O’Neill some information about a nefarious plot to attack Europe by an angry rich Greek nationalist named Aristotle Papadopolous. Aristotle is upset about the European Union’s treatment of Greece, his home country. He intends to destroy all of Europe’s electrical grid. The only question is how, where and when. O’Neill forces Bryce and the Kincaids to help him stop Aristotle’s plot.

The rest of the movie involves Bryce, Darius and Sonia trying to get along with one another to help Interpol stop Aristotle. Just when they think they’ve figured everything out, they run into another comical twist. Meanwhile, as he tries to work with these two lunatics, Bryce is punched in the face, shot, stabbed, hit by a car, run over by a boat, burnt, and almost drowned.

The comical twists in THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD are funny, and some of the dialogue is witty, but they’re accompanied by nearly constant foul language, especially abundant “f” words. Also, the action ultimately comes so fast and furious that it’s too frantic, frenetic and frenzied. Adding a bunch of “f” words to the dialogue makes the dialogue seem even more frenzied than the action. Ultimately, watching this movie is too tiring and not as fun and satisfying as it could have been.

Although the three lead characters are helping an international police force stop a rich, destructive, revenge-minded terrorist, they have no discernible spiritual or ethical moral system supporting their actions to save Europe. Of the three, Ryan Reynold’s Boyce character has the strongest moral character, in that he’s always trying to do the right thing. After all, unlike Darius and Sonia, who are criminals, he’s a bodyguard who’s sworn to protect his clients, even though he’s lost his license. In fact, as he did for Darius in the previous 2017 action comedy, THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD, at one point he takes a bullet for Sonia (he’s wearing a bullet-proof vest, so he doesn’t die). So, while the sequel here has some positive moral elements, the worldview is generally a pagan, amoral one.

Finally, the movie’s economic politics are a little confusing. For example, the villain is depicted as a wealthy Greek nationalist upset about the European Union’s austerity measures forced on Greece during the country’s economic problems resulting from the government’s massive national debt in recent years. In general, MOVIEGUIDE® isn’t supportive of the economic centralization and socialist policies of international and national organizations like the EU. However, from what we understand, Greece’s government got into financial trouble during the Great Recession in 2008, because of its centralized, socialist, big government policies. THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD makes the villain somewhat of a conservative Donald Trump figure who’s loyal to Greece’s heritage as a founder of Western Civilization, ala Trump’s America First agenda and “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) motto. Instead of MAGA, the villain’s motto could be stated, MGGA, or “Make Greece Great Again.” These ideas are mostly only implied in the movie, however. Also, it should be noted that, in reality, it isn’t Greek culture itself that’s the foundation of Western Civilization. It’s actually Christianity’s transformation of Greco-Roman culture through the Bible and the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is the foundation of Western Civilization. Using Christian, historical and biblical truth, Jesus and His Apostles gave the world a universal spiritual and moral system that, over the centuries, brought more peace, goodness, prosperity, compassion, and justice to the whole world, and not just to Europe, Central Asia and the West (see RELIGION AND THE RISE OF WESTERN CULTURE by Christopher Dawson, HOW CHRISTIANITY CHANGED THE WORLD by Alvin J. Schmidt and other historical works).