Killer's bodyguard

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Movie
German title Killer's bodyguard
Original title The Hitman's Bodyguard
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 16
Rod
Director Patrick Hughes
script Tom O'Connor
production David Ellison ,
Mark Gill ,
Dana Goldberg ,
Matthew O'Toole ,
John Thompson ,
Les Weldon
music Atli Örvarsson
camera Jules O'Loughlin
cut Jake Roberts
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

Killer's Bodyguard (English original title The Hitman's Bodyguard ) is an American action comedy directed by Patrick Hughes from 2017 and produced for Netflix . Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson play the leading roles. The premiere on German television took place on November 11, 2019 on ZDF under the title Der Killer & sein Bodyguard .

action

Michael Bryce is an "exclusive 1A bodyguard " and is one of the best in his craft. His great success as a bodyguard is based on extensive preparation, the consideration of all eventualities and a slow, considered approach - in addition to his enormous skills in close combat and the use of firearms, which he learned as an agent of the CIA . When he is supposed to escort the Japanese arms dealer Kurosawa through London to his private jet, everything goes well at first - until Kurosawa (already sitting in the plane) is killed by a head shot from a great distance. Bryce is losing its reputation .

Two years later, the former top bodyguard has not lost any of his outstanding skills, but has to be content with unflattering jobs. He blames his ex-girlfriend Amelia Roussel for his professional decline, because he believes she revealed the name of his guardian and his plan for career reasons. Amelia has since made a career as an agent at Interpol and is familiar with her first important assignment: she is to escort the imprisoned contract killer Darius Kincaid from Manchester to The Hague . There Kincaid is supposed to testify before the International Criminal Court against Vladislav Dukhovich, the dictatorial president of Belarus . Dukhovich is charged with genocide , but few witnesses make it into the courtroom alive; there is no solid evidence whatsoever. Kincaid, in turn, claims to be able to provide evidence of various massacres. In return, his allegedly innocent wife Sonia is said to be allowed to leave her prison in Amsterdam .

The convoy of prisoners, including some Interpol agents and Kincaid, is forcibly stopped in Coventry by Dukhovich's henchmen, with only Amelia and Kincaid being able to escape the firefight. Kincaid, who saves Amelia's life several times, is shot; however, both can escape to a nearby safe house . There Kincaid tends his wound, while Amelia calls for help from the only person she can trust: Michael Bryce. Bryce is supposed to finish her job, because she suspects a traitor at Interpol and therefore cannot call in the regular forces of the agency. But due to a shared past (Kincaid's targets were often under Bryce's protection), the two must first pull themselves together in order to achieve their goal of The Hague.

Because of their different ways of working, there is even more trouble: Bryce prefers a quiet, inconspicuous escape from Dukhovich's men, while Kincaid prefers more shootings with them and thus attracts even more followers. As he does so, he takes a cell phone that the pursuers can locate, which means that they are aware of the rambling routes over remote country roads that Bryce drives as a precaution. The two professionals hitchhike the last few meters to the ferry in a minibus full of nuns who happily sing and clap with Kincaid. When he arrives at the port, Kincaid asks his protector (who does not understand the cheerfulness) what he thinks is a philosophical question: Which of them is the bad one? The one who kills the really bad people or the one who protects the really bad people? In the course of the conversation, Kincaid explains that he committed his first murder as a teenager - it was an act of revenge after a farmer beat a preacher (as it later turns out, Kincaid's biological father) to death for no reason. Since then he has been killing himself, and for his own financial gain, but only people who, in his own opinion, are the “really bad guys”.

The unlikely team arrives in Amsterdam and initially hides in one of Bryce's old apartments. Kincaid disappears from this to put a basket full of flowers for his imprisoned wife on the church tower opposite her window. When Bryce found Kincaid inside the church tower and asked how he could be so careless, he replied that Bryce was getting on everyone's nerves with his almost manic caution. This is also the reason why Amelia broke up with him. Kincaid mentions that it was he who shot Kurosawa two years ago through the aircraft window from over three hundred meters away. The Japanese was not actually his target: On the roof of a skyscraper, Kincaid waited for a completely different victim and, more out of boredom, observed the goings-on on the airfield through his telescopic sight. When he recognized the dodgy arms dealer (one of the "really bad people"), he simply pulled the trigger - that he also hit from a distance surprised him. When Bryce learns that his life's work and extensive preparation have been destroyed by a single, unplanned lucky shot, he leaves Kincaid and hopes for the success of Dukhovich's men. These follow Kincaid across the city, who escapes across the canals in a motorboat . After a devastating chase, at the end of which Bryce saves his protégé's life again and again, both get together again and make the last leg of the journey to The Hague.

Once there, they don't have much time, as Dukhovich would otherwise have to be acquitted for lack of evidence. The dictator's apparently last men stand in the way of the two warriors, but Bryce and Kincaid can hold their own against their opponents separately. At the last second they reach the courtroom and Kincaid begins his testimony. He can substantiate the charges with images stored in a cloud that show Dukhovich and his men executing innocent people. Kincaid was also used for similar assignments, but refused to murder innocents. Just as Dukhovich is about to be convicted, he stands up and declares that, as the rightful president, he will not allow himself to be condemned by an international association that has nothing to do with his actions in his state. To prove his power, he has a truck pull up in front of the court, which then explodes and dismantles half the building to rubble and ashes. In the ensuing chaos, Dukhovich disarms a security guard and tries to shoot Kincaid, but his bodyguard Bryce throws himself in between. Kincaid pursues the fugitive up to the roof, where he wants to be picked up by a hijacked rescue helicopter, which Kincaid crashes with targeted shots. Then he kicks Dukhovich, who is sitting on the parapet, into the depths. Bryce saves his ex-girlfriend from the traitor, Interpol Vice President Foucher, and is treated by paramedics when Kincaid says goodbye to him as he has to go back to prison.

A few weeks later, the news reported that Kincaid had broken out. He and Sonia celebrate their wedding anniversary in the bar where they met years before.

production

In May 2011, Skydance Media , David Ellison's company , acquired the script for the Tom O'Connor- written action film Killer's Bodyguard . It was one of the top rated unproduced scripts in the 2011 Black List poll . Originally written as an action drama, the script was transformed into a comedy just a few weeks before shooting began within a “wild” two-week makeover.

The film was shot in Europe. Filming locations were London , Amsterdam , The Hague and Sofia . The scenes in the subway and the chase in the canal bed that are set in the film in the Netherlands were filmed in Sofia. The building of the National Bank in Sofia was used for the exterior shots of the International Criminal Court in The Hague . Further recordings were made in the Bulgarian Nu Boyana film studios, including the attack on the prisoner transport in the streets of Coventry.

reception

In an overall poor US cinema summer of 2017, Killer's Bodyguard topped the charts when it opened in the US on Friday, with sales of just over three million dollars. By Hurricane Harvey and boxing major event Conor McGregor against Mayweather Floyd Jr. , this was one of the worst theater weekends of the year.

criticism

Overall, Killer's Bodyguard has been classified by the critics as a well-known action comedy. The chemistry between the leading actors Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson was praised; their witty-absurd verbal exchanges of blows deceived the film to a large extent, while the general story about genre clichés did not stand out. CinemaScore audience polls gave a B + rating on a scale from A + to F.

The editorial team of Cinema wrote: “The explosive action comedy was directed by Patrick Hughes (' The Expendables 3 ') and has a consistently brisk pace. You shouldn't expect originality from a shooting festival like 'Killer's Bodyguard', which is easily compensated for by the spirited enthusiasm of Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. [...] Conclusion: Routine action thriller in the buddy movie style with flippant sayings and sovereign performance. "The film service judged:" Neither exciting nor amusing, enriched with unnecessary brutality, genre mixture of flat-cool gibberish and inflationary shootouts, which quickly Tired of the orgy of destruction of bodies and vehicles. ”Antje Wessels rated the film with 3.5 out of 5 possible stars on film starts and summed up:“ The main actors are having fun and the action scenes are bursting with creativity and ingenuity. In terms of content, however, 'Killer's Bodyguard' doesn't offer too much new, which is also reflected in the interchangeable secondary characters. "

Trivia

The building and the location of the International Criminal Court in The Hague have nothing in common in reality or in the film, apart from the (alleged) city of their location. The building used for the exterior shots is the National Bank in Sofia. For an aerial photo of the court shown in the film, it was slightly modified and installed together with a neighboring building in an aerial photo of the Amsterdam Dam on the site of the Royal Palace .

As part of the chase in Amsterdam, Kincaid hangs himself briefly from the outside of the window of a moving tram. In the film, this train and the train that was approaching it shortly before it run on the left , although road traffic in the Netherlands is driven on the right.

continuation

A sequel with the original title The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is due to hit US cinemas on August 28, 2021.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Killer's Bodyguard . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Age rating for Killer's Bodyguard . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Monday Cinema: The Killer & His Bodyguard , accessed on November 4, 2019
  4. ↑ Justin Kroll: Skydance nabs 'The Hitman's Bodyguard'. In: Variety . May 25, 2011, accessed on August 27, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Nikki Finke: The Black List 2011: Screenplay Roster. In: deadline.com . December 12, 2011, accessed August 27, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson Are Your New Favorite Buddy Comedy Duo. Retrieved August 27, 2017 (American English).
  7. ↑ The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017). Retrieved September 10, 2017 .
  8. ^ The Hitman's Bodyguard Triumphing The Box Office . In: Nu Boyana Film Studios . August 28, 2017 ( nuboyana.com [accessed September 10, 2017]).
  9. ↑ JD Knapp: Box Office: 'Hitman's Bodyguard' Barely Beating 'Annabelle: Creation' to Win Slowest Weekend of 2017. In: Variety . August 26, 2017, accessed on August 27, 2017 .
  10. ^ Peter Debruge: Film Review: 'The Hitman's Bodyguard'. Variety , August 10, 2017, accessed September 17, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Anthony D'Alessandro: Looking Under 'Logan Lucky's Hood As' Hitman's Bodyguard' Stands Tall With $ 21M Opening - Saturday AM Update. Deadline.com , August 19, 2017, accessed September 17, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Killer's Bodyguard. Cinema , accessed September 17, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Killer's Bodyguard - short review. Film service , accessed September 17, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Antje Wessels: Killer's Bodyguard. Film releases , accessed September 17, 2017 .
  15. ^ Robert Gaal: New movie "The Hitman's Bodyguard" edits out old Amsterdam churches, palaces and war memorials. I like the original better.pic.twitter.com/H2sVRYr0w5. In: @robertgaal. May 27, 2017, accessed on September 11, 2017 .
  16. ↑ FilmSelect: KILLERS BODYGUARD Trailer German German (2017). May 12, 2017. Retrieved September 11, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Dave McNary: 'John Wick 4,' 'The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard' Get New Release Dates. In: Variety . May 1, 2020, accessed May 2, 2020 .