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This week on Exploding Cars, Singing Nuns and Quipping Killers:
Greg and Joe tackle 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard, a movie that asks the age-old question: What if Deadpool and Nick Fury had to road trip together while everyone tried to kill them?
Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a once-elite bodyguard whose life has fallen apart, and Samuel L. Jackson is Darius Kincaid, a legendary hitman who needs to testify at The Hague. The twist? They hate each other. The bigger twist? They have to work together to survive.
Directed by Patrick Hughes (who clearly loves explosions and banter in equal measure), this movie delivers high-octane action sequences, absurd comic timing, and Salma Hayek absolutely stealing every scene she’s in as Kincaid’s imprisoned wife who might be more dangerous than both of them combined.
Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. Is it self-aware? Painfully so. Does it feature Samuel L. Jacks on singing “I Will Always Love You” while driving a boat through Amsterdam? You’re darn right it does.
Greg and Joe buckle up, check their routes, and discover that sometimes the best protection is a good offense (and a lot of swearing).
As with every episode, this is the conversation that needed to happen about this movie. Also: Drinking Games, Important Questions, Joe’s Back of the Box, and more.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe. The movie we watched this week was called The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Quick question for you. Do you consider yourself more of a hitman or a bodyguard?
Joe: I consider myself more of a very specific kind of hitman. Okay. And that would be one that operates. How? Vladimir Putin did. Only in poison. That would be like my calling card.
Greg: Just like random frogs.
Joe: Yes, exactly. Or polonium. Whatever. Whatever.
Greg: Yeah, but never like pushing out of a window.
Joe: No, no. Nothing like that. That’s a very subtle of, you know, it’s, high brow hitman, if you will.
Greg: This explains so much after seeing what has happened to the people around you in your life.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. What about you? Hitman or bodyguard?
Greg: You know, I think I like to think that I’m a bodyguard, but also, I’m the kind of bodyguard where, If something bad happens to the person I’m guarding, it’s probably because I’m napping. Yeah.
Joe: No triple rating for you. So.
Greg: Absolutely. No. All right. Well, Hey, Samuel l Jackson, you ready for us to get the show? I think so, yeah.
Joe: He’s singing, I hope. Oh, good lord.
Greg: I think I think we should just get to the show. I think he’s busy with the nuns.
Joe: Let’s just get to the show.
Greg: Okay, let’s do it. Hi.
Clip: This is Michael Bryce. I’m an executive protection agent. I’ve extracted my client clean up as required. I have a job for you. The transport is in there.
Greg: What the.
Clip: Give me away price you can pay. Don’t make it so. They kill each other first.
Greg: Okay. Hut three. One.
Greg: My bad. You’re bad.
Greg: The year is 2017. And a script that’s been on the blacklist since 2011 finally gets in the hands of director Patrick Hughes. I am so excited that we are talking about Patrick Hughes in this episode, and Patrick Hughes decides it’s time for a quick rewrite in, like the two weeks before they start filming this movie, they make a movie called The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Greg: We are talking about Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L Jackson, Gary Oldman, second week in a row. We’re talking about Gary Oldman as the Russian bad guy, which just means only good things are happening on this podcast right now. Elodie Young Richard E Grant shows up in this movie for a second, basically doing a sequel to, Withnail and I 40 years before this movie.
Greg: Joe Skywalker, we are watching this movie because you love this movie.
Joe: That’s true.
Greg: And so, Joe Skywalker, I have never met this sentence in this question more in my life. What makes The Hitman’s Bodyguard a great bad movie?
Joe: It is a perfect, great, bad movie.
Greg: Agreed.
Joe: And All the Way is. Yes, plot is completely ridiculous and you don’t even care one bit. No, the magic of this is Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson together. Yep, it’s Odd couple buddy film, and it’s one legitimately funny start to finish. You know, it’s almost a comedy action versus an action comedy, if that makes sense. That distinction.
Joe: And I hope our dear listeners, if you’re listening to this show, probably understand that distinction really well. It’s beyond ridiculous. And it’s perfect. It’s it’s one of those rare movies, no notes. Spoiler alert when we get to important questions and you ask me, how can this movie be fixed? A.K.A. who’s to be in the remake?
Greg: Sure.
Joe: None. No notes on this. I do have an answer for that. Whoa.
Greg: So that does feel like an important question I should ask you later in the show. Yeah, it’s a good point. I’m gonna write that down.
Joe: This movie is, to me, is it’s a crowd pleaser movie. Every time I watch it and I’ve seen it at least five times this summer, I am just so happy.
Greg: You’re happy. How’s the rest of the crowd?
Joe: I’m so happy. I don’t care how they are. We don’t. That’s how happy. Yeah, they don’t need to know.
Greg: Okay, I have to time out for just a second, because I usually read the stars of a movie from kind of the main page on IMDb. And IMDb has entirely failed us in this episode, because Salma Hayek does not show as part of the top cast in this movie when she is like the fourth billed person in the movie.
Greg: Yeah, and a very important part of this movie, says Salma Hayek. I’m so sorry. I apologize to you and your entire family on behalf of me and my entire family. I’ve brought dishonor to the show. Yes, thanks a lot. I IMDb.
Joe: Absolutely. Yeah. How can we forget? She has clearly is having a great time in her role. Yep. She’s probably on set for what, two days?
Greg: It feels like a week. It’s like 12 minutes of screen time, maybe.
Joe: All in one spot. So it’s like probably really easy.
Greg: How close was that bar set where she does the bar shenanigans? How close is that to her jail cell set?
Joe: Okay, so yeah, it’s probably a week is probably because I’ve got some choreography to it, like the jail cell. I was thinking the jail cell set, that’s like, that’s two days.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah I totally.
Joe: And she is hilarious in this. Everyone is really funny in it.
Greg: It was a comedy for like two weeks before that. It was a completely serious movie.
Joe: That’s wild. And the action in this movie is awesome.
Greg: Oh, amazing.
Joe: It is an awesome action movie.
Greg: That’s where you say, the secret weapon is Ryan Reynolds and Samuel Jackson. I am so in camp Patrick Hughes. We’ll get into it, but I think he is an absolute secret weapon.
Joe: Yeah, I have a prattle on about this. What do you think of this movie? Obviously, I think I know, but also tell us, Greg. Fine. What do you think of The Hitman’s Bodyguard?
Greg: I’ve never heard somebody say prattle before. Can I say stop your prattling sometimes to people around me? Absolutely I didn’t, that was enough said.
Joe: Please do.
Greg: Okay, so I completely missed that. This movie came out. This movie came out 2017. I had a one year old at the time I had seen Deadpool, and this is kind of the follow up to Deadpool. You know, in a lot of ways, this kind of solidified that Ryan Reynolds could make a super funny, super sarcastic, somewhat meta, but still great action movie that had a bit of blood.
Greg: Yeah. And, this was a solid, solid follow up to Deadpool and probably solidified Ryan Reynolds as like, yeah, he could just continue making these movies forever, and you and I would love it. So I had not seen this movie. You and I reconnect sometime in 2020, I think.
Joe: Yeah, about that.
Greg: And something you said to me early on was every time The Hitman’s Bodyguard is on, I have to watch it. It’s one of my favorite movies. I didn’t even realize it had come out. So part of us reconnecting as friends who hadn’t talked forever, right, was okay. Yeah, I need to test out what Joe’s great bad movie theory is now compared to way, way back when we hung out.
Greg: And I’ve got to say, this movie is so awesome. And it has a lot of my home team working on it. And part of our love of the stunt crew and the second unit director, people and directors out there, this was one of those movies that it was kind of like, oh, a lot of my favorite people who have worked on some of my guilty pleasure, favorite movies are also in this movie.
Greg: I’m starting to see starting to connect the dots behind the scenes of who my favorite stunt coordinators are a second unit directors, that kind of thing. So this movie is pretty quintessential. And you and I reconnecting. I realize you said you loved it. I had never heard of it. I watched it and I was like, I will watch every movie that just I Tucker, recommend it from now on.
Greg: He’s he’s back in. So I was so glad you mentioned it. And I’m so glad that we are talking about it because this is a movie that did super well at the box office, and I feel like has completely been forgotten. Agreed. I feel like we need to bring this movie back to the forefront of American culture in 2026.
Joe: Absolutely it is. It is due. I watched it on streaming, whatever that was. You know, I didn’t watch it in the theater, had low expectations. I kind of had it in the realm of safe House, which is another Ryan Reynolds, which is a great movie, great movie. I have been purposefully haven’t watched it for, because I know we’re going to do it on this podcast at some point.
Joe: So I want to come in real fresh, and that was another movie that I was probably working while I was on in the background. Yeah. And this was a movie that I was doing the same thing, and I had to stop working and just focus on this movie because it was so funny. And yes, you know, it’s one of those, oh, no, actually, this is a good movie, and it’s funny and it’s ridiculous and the the action is off the charts.
Joe: And so.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: This movie was a revelation for.
Greg: Me. I love that distinction, because if you’re working in safe houses and you’re like, I got it, I don’t need to make up everything. Yeah, but this one, it’s like, hold up. That was really funny. I need to be paying attention. Yeah, that’s a great distinction. Yeah. Oh my gosh. We will get to safe house. That was the yeah.
Greg: One of the most magical movies in 2012 that I saw.
Greg: By the way, same stunt coordinator. Okay, we’re talking about a guy named Greg Powell, and he, did safe House, and the next year, he did stunts in Skyfall.
Joe: Oh, interesting.
Greg: And in the special features for this movie, Ryan Reynolds says half of the broken bones in his body are because of Greg Powell. He goes all the way back to Blade Trinity. Awesome. Working with Ryan Reynolds, where do you stand on Ryan Reynolds today? Were you more high on Ryan Reynolds in 2017?
Joe: I’m pretty high on Ryan Reynolds. I like him, yeah, I think I’m a little bit down now. I feel like he’s on the cusp of jumping the shark a little bit and kind of like this was. So I was like, Deadpool, Hitman’s Bodyguard in Deadpool two and a pretty quick succession.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And you kind of get the full Ryan Reynolds experience I have. Yes. You know, watch Van Wilder way back when that came out. Sure. You know, so I have been in the tank for Ryan Reynolds. I think sometimes that wears a little thin and is now at the point where he plays kind of the same character over and over again.
Joe: And it. Yep. Sometimes land, sometimes doesn’t. This time, to me, lands perfectly. Yes. So I think I was probably higher on him then. And Deadpool two is probably like for me, the apex for me with Ryan Reynolds. But he’s fallen off just a little bit. But I am also I’m still will watch everything that he’s in.
Greg: Okay. Did you see Deadpool three?
Joe: I have not seen that yet. I won’t, I will for sure.
Greg: Yeah, you don’t. You need to take a break. Yeah, there can be too much Ryan Reynolds. God bless him for making all the movies that he has made in the last ten years. And I’m glad that he found his lane. It seemed like when Deadpool came out, I was like, yeah, he’s been doing this forever. It just took us this long to come around to it.
Greg: I guess it was like the rights. It was just an actually great action movie as well. Yeah, but also very funny. This movie kind of follows suit. Where have you seen where Deadpool will, parody a lot of other movie posters?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: You know, they did that with this movie too, where Ryan Reynolds is carrying Samuel Jackson and it’s the poster from The Bodyguard with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. Right. So he has this same crew of people writing all these things.
Joe: Yeah. The chemistry between him and Samuel L Jackson is undeniable. Yep. I think, again, it’s it’s a reminder of how amazing Samuel L Jackson is to.
Greg: Yes.
Joe: I mean, he’s he’s another one that’s kind of been playing that character for a really long time. Yep. And sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn’t. And this is another one that that lands to me perfectly. It’s like the perfect pairing coming together. It should be said, there’s an awful, awful sequel to this movie, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.
Joe: Yeah, I mean, I’ll watch it again.
Greg: You’re not enough. You’re not a monster.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Terrible person to me. It made the classic mistake of one of the funniest parts of The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Is Salma Hayek as Samuel Jackson’s wife, right. She’s, definitely a costar. I wouldn’t call it a cameo. No, but, yeah, her character is, like, so foul mouthed, and she is hilarious start to finish. But it’s perfect because he’s only on screen for eight minutes.
Greg: It’s like 12. I think it’s basically Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the lambs. Yeah, it’s just enough.
Joe: And then they basically make an entire movie out of that character as the sequel. And it’s.
Greg: Just.
Joe: For me, it felt totally fine, like it was comic relief and unexpected. You don’t expect Salma Hayek to come in and just be the most foul, vulgar person there. She’s in a cell. The funniest part to me is like her room. Her cellmate is in the corner facing into the corner. Can’t let me get her. Yeah, stuff like that is so funny.
Joe: Yeah. And then you try to make an entire movie out of it. It just wore on me.
Greg: But yeah.
Joe: For this movie, she is perfect. Like, everything is perfect in this movie. It’s the way that I look at it.
Greg: We talked a couple weeks ago about John Wick two being kind of the poster child for how to make a sequel, just enough for the first one, a little bit of new stuff expanding the world. I feel like The Second Hitman’s Bodyguard could have learned a little bit from John Wick two of what to run with and what to keep as an amuse bouche.
Greg: Yes, if you will.
Joe: Take less things out of that.
Greg: John Wick 2 or 3 where they say I space.
Joe: That’s a good question. I don’t know. Our listeners will tell us.
Greg: I mean, it’s not January anymore. How can we find out? Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Yes. He is just perfectly mean. Yeah. Her cellmate that has to face the corner and I turn around. It makes me laugh every single time they cut to her.
Joe: Every time.
Greg: And the person in the corner is, like, super scared of her as well. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And there’s a moment where she’s really nervous and she farts a little bit. Yeah. What do you think of that? What did that make you laugh?
Joe: It did make me laugh. I shouldn’t have. It’s one of those like.
Greg: Yeah, we’re children. Yeah, children. Okay, so Patrick Hughes in the in the director’s commentary, he said that was the very last thing we did in the sound mix. Everybody thought she should toot and I didn’t. And so we just did a vote of everybody in the studio who thinks she should do it, and everybody in the room but him raise their hand.
Greg: And he was like, all right, I guess I’m wrong. Yeah, she tunes and I feel like they were right. I feel like that was something we needed right there. Yeah, yeah, I think we need the occasional fart joke. It’s okay.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Why is it needed? No, but it was funny in the moment. Yeah. And it’s it’s a juvenile movie with really juvenile humor throughout. And so why not?
Greg: I’m related to somebody who hates the word fart, by the way. I feel like I, I am hesitant to say it in public. And they prefer the term fanny burp. Oh all right, instead of fart. And so I said fart in front of this person one time, and they said, I prefer that you say fanny burp. And I said, I will totally say Fanny burp as long as I can start calling burps, face farts.
Greg: And they did not go for that deal. So it was a stalemate. Yeah.
Joe: That’s fair.
Greg: That’s fair to the listeners. That’s available to you. Fanny burps in face farts. Yeah. So one of the things in this movie is that Ryan Reynolds is a perfectionist. He is a Triple-A rated bodyguard, and he loses that Triple-A rating. How many times do they say Triple-A in this movie, Joe?
Joe: Enough that if it’s a drinking game, you should be splitting that with water? Interesting. Okay. You will end up in a corner tooting.
Greg: Yeah. Just fanny burping.
Joe: Yeah. All over the place. Yeah. The Triple-A rated and boring is best for.
Greg: Oh, that’s true. Yeah. They show him in the beginning when he is, Triple-A rated. And it basically kind of looks like a commercial. He has like a perfectly clean, modern house. I wanted to bring up that he has this, like thing that he opens up and it shows all his guns kind of in what looks like very expensive foam.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: On the wall. And that’s that’s where he grabs all his guns. Have I been storing my guns wrong this whole time? Do they need to be in foam on the wall?
Joe: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Behind like a picture that, like, moves out of the way. So yeah. Yeah.
Greg: It feels a little bit John Wick almost.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But he’s not the hitman. He’s just the bodyguard.
Joe: Yeah. That was the one part where there’s a moment where they’re way into the film, where they end up at like an apartment that he has in The Hague, and it’s beautiful and perfect. It’s like, how are you affording this if you are now? Because the story goes, he’s the top of the top. And then unbeknownst to him, the person he’s trying to protect is is killed, like right in front of him and he loses everything.
Joe: But apparently not the beautiful house. I guess not in The Hague, in Amsterdam, which is very close to The Hague. And then he’s got all his guns in the wall there too. So yeah, but maybe new trope guns in the wall. We have bags of guns and bags of money, but guns nicely stowed in walls in foam.
Greg: Maybe in foam. Yeah, you sometimes you see them like in really skinny drawers as well.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: What do you think? Do you like it in the wall? Like in a drawer?
Joe: I like it in the wall.
Greg: I like it in the wall. Yeah. Stop it with this, horizontal stuff guys. Gotta go vertical. Yeah. I want to point out the music in this movie at the beginning. This is a big piece of this movie. Right. That was the telegram. The play by the way. It just exploded.
Greg: Up there was a helicopter flying by the camera, a CGI helicopter flying by a CGI camera. Yep. Or no, making a real camera. CGI shake.
Greg: This movie has everything. It’s like every virtue signal that you need from it could have been made in 2009, but it’s made in 2017, so it’s perfect. It’s perfecting 2009 in a lot of ways with its, digital stuff. But that song is basically Hey Bullfrog by the Beatles, right? We can agree on that damn damn thing to be into.
Greg: Ding ding ding ding ding. But there are so many moments in this movie where it’s like, hey, that’s just basically a different song, a criticism. I have this movie is I feel like they kind of either phoned in the music or purposefully were so derivative that it backfired for me. Okay, there are so many moments in this movie where the music is basically just something else.
Joe: I agree, I think the music can be distracting in this movie. Yeah, and there’s often throughout kind of the middle part of the movie, there’s like intersect the different scenes with classic soul songs and stuff like that. And then some of the, some of the action scenes have that kind of music. Yeah. Over it. And so I do feel like it’s a little distracting and make them feel sillier than they need to be, if that makes sense.
Joe: Yeah. So there’s an amazing car chase at the end of this. Yeah. In Amsterdam. Yep. And I agree the music was distracting on that. Throughout that entire chase scene. It works. I don’t know what I would replace it with, but any moment where they can be a little bit more serious, like that chase scene, kind of think of the song.
Joe: I can hear it in my head, but it’s it’s kind of a more modern song, but it was very similar to what you just played. And so to me, the music is distracting for sure.
Greg: Yep, yep. I think he’s an Icelandic composer. Atlee or Iversen? I know that after they had finished the movie, I think, the director went to Reykjavik. So worth it. Probably. Probably. I think that was probably. I love going to Reykjavik. So, this guy’s done music for that show. Silo for Apple. He’s done a lot of. He’s done a lot of things.
Greg: He’s on notice, though. I need to I need to think about it. Here’s where I love this dude. Here’s where the music is amazing. Any time you’re about to get to a bad guy, the music turns so overtly evil. Like, here’s a guy walking up to something on a gravel road and picking it up. I wonder who this person is and if they’re a good guy or a bad guy.
Joe: Let’s listen to this, okay?
Greg: I sold to the for.
Greg: So ominous through a lot of cinematic stuff right there. That’s incredible. Yeah. All right, so extra evil points. So this guy’s back in my good graces any time there’s a bad guy. But this movie is such an homage to the movie Midnight Run. Do you know that movie Midnight Run?
Joe: Oh, yeah.
Greg: Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin, one of the best movies of all time. We can agree on that. Directed by Martin Brest immediately after he made Beverly Hills Cop, also a movie that was not a comedy until like the weekend before when Eddie Murphy showed up. It was going to be a Sylvester Stallone movie. We’ll get to Beverly Hills Cop.
Joe: Oh, yeah.
Greg: But Midnight Run is a great movie. It is a movie that has a score by Danny Elfman, who’s incredible, and it sounds exactly like this. And I’m gonna play music from, The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Let’s hear it.
Greg: I.
Greg: Know. I mean, that is Midnight Run. It’s slightly different. Legally dissimilar. I think it’s about. He would say that’s Ryan Reynolds. Let’s just homage to things. Maybe I’m okay with it, I don’t know, but, it was confounding as I was watching this movie. Like, what are we doing here, guys? I feel like we could have done another pass on the on the music.
Joe: I agree, it’s it’s distracting and moments. I do think this movie is an homage to all the 80s and 90s buddy cop, odd couple movies. We have all grew up, you know, from Lethal Weapon to 48 hours. Yeah, throw in Beverly Hills Cop.
Greg: I mean, Midnight Run because he’s trying to get someone someplace to testify. Isn’t that the plot of Midnight Run? Yeah, yeah. So if you’re going to make a great movie, making it a must to midnight run, you’re going to get me every time. Yeah, I love this movie. But there were just times with the music I was like, okay, I think we should have done another pass here.
Greg: I don’t think this was the idea.
Joe: And even I felt like the music at moments was a little too loud, like, turn It down just a lot like it felt. Yeah, intrusive is probably the best way to put it that moment.
Greg: So best movie of all time. But we have some notes. Yeah, yeah. Okay. When his Triple-A rating is stripped away from him and we go to sad Ryan Reynolds.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Do you feel like the colors changed at all in the movie?
Joe: Joe I do feel like that happened pretty drastically. This movie is not subtle. It’s what I’m saying.
Greg: It is so blue. It is unbelievable. Also, anytime we flashback to anything in this movie, the colors are insane.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So vibrant. So this so that it’s it’s basically traffic by Steven Soderbergh.
Joe: It’s. Yeah. It’s very true. Yeah. This is not you’re not watching this movie for subtle direction. It is. The sound is telling you who the good guys and the bad guys are. So the color story, the music is everything. It’s it’s real clear, pretty cut and dry. Hear what’s happening. So it’s awesome. And I’ll just for anyone is going to be playing along with us on our drinking games.
Joe: There’s only one stop drinking game that is not included in this.
Greg: Oh leave that there. So leave that there. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Foreshadowing.
Greg: Yeah. Oh my gosh. You have to skip ahead 14 hours to get to that part of the show. So he’s super sad. He’s blue. He’s peeing into a bottle in his car. His car smells like honk. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Which is our way of swearing on the show. That was not in the script. That was just something that made Patrick Hughes laugh. And he was like, okay, new rule. Every time you get into the car, you have to mention this. Okay. And so he he carried that torch, that baton all the way through.
Joe: Nice.
Greg: But Ryan Reynolds is saving Richard Grant’s in the beginning of his memories. He’s. Yeah. Yeah. If he had gotten in his car, it would have blown up, I guess.
Joe: So, yeah.
Greg: So is it time for us to have a conversation that needs to be had about Richard Grant?
Joe: Probably.
Greg: Where where do you stand on Richard Grant? What’s it like for you? And he shows up in a movie or a show?
Joe: To me, it’s, clear indication of someone that’s going to be kind of a sleazeball. That’s what, that’s what he, he’s like a bad guy slash. He’s never the good guy in anything that I’ve ever seen him in again. He was on set for it three days.
Greg: Oh yeah. If that. It was a favor.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But he’s like hiding behind his desk. And then he pokes his head above the desk and notices some pills there and just starts eating the downing the pills.
Greg: Anytime he shows up, you know that this could get funny at any moment. Yeah, and what a gifts Richard E Grant is in my life. Every time he pops up, he makes me laugh.
Joe: That’s the other thing that I think is the beauty about this movie is it’s not just Ryan Reynolds or Samuel L Jackson being funny. It’s everybody. And it’s like that little moment of him taking the pills, and he’s kind of like shoveling them into his mouth isn’t like off the edge as he’s looking over the edge of his desk.
Greg: That’s like, you didn’t need to.
Joe: Do it that way, but it’s that’s how it needed to be done, was the lyrics and yeah, for me.
Greg: So I mean, if you’re trying to tell me in the first couple minutes if this movie is for me. Yeah, everything that’s happened up to this moment, except for a label that has entirely sold me, I’m entirely on board. And then we get away from the blue, we start going different places, and then secretly, this movie becomes like the most beautiful movie I’ve ever seen in my life.
Greg: This movie is embracing, like, full sensor digital photography in a way that I that you rarely see. Also, you remember when we did Face Off and we were cracking up at the smoke machine was on at the end of the movie? Yeah. That smoke machine was on so hard on the on the set of Face Off that that smoke has ended up all over the place in this movie as well.
Greg: 1997 straight to 2017. That’s a 20 year smoke machine and it is just the perfect amount of smoke. It is not a face off amount, it is diffused a little bit and it is just giving us depth. Like you’ve never seen night time forests, courtrooms.
Joe: Shootouts, anything.
Greg: Man, this is a beautiful movie.
Joe: Yeah. They are bringing every trick in the toolbox to this and it works every single time.
Greg: So Jules O’Laughlin is the cinematographer of this movie, the director of photography. He is the one that’s in charge of lights and lenses and smoke machines and just kills it in this movie, the next great bad movie he would have worked on is Angel Has Fallen. We’ll get to it. You just fallen. Are you kidding me?
Joe: Got the all the has fallen.
Greg: That movie bizarrely keeps coming up, by the way. Yeah. Also, Miss Marvel also, did you ever watch that show the old man?
Joe: No. I’ve been meaning to.
Greg: Beautiful show.
Joe: Miss Marvel. I like Miss Marvel too. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it was. It was okay.
Greg: Yeah. What are some things that you noticed about this movie?
Joe: Salma Hayek coming in as Samuel L Jackson, his wife. To me, that was the moment where I was like, oh, this movie is 100% for me.
Greg: So much better than it needed to be.
Joe: Yeah, because she is just so funny and even, like he’s calling her, he’s like hatching himself up because he got shot in the leg and he just wants to hear her voice. And he’s kind of like the romantic lead of this movie, if you will. Sure, sure. And she is screaming at him with as much, obscenities as you can imagine.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And then just what they do from an action standpoint of what, you know, having a movie pay off in a way that you weren’t expecting. Yeah. Yeah. When the when they get to Amsterdam, there’s basically like a 20 minute action scene that just keeps happening and it’s glorious. They get to the courtroom, you have Gary Oldman, we have talked about Gary Oldman in this.
Greg: The reason we’re talking about this, because we did Air Force One last week.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. He is great. It’s like let Gary Oldman cook. They let him be just evil Gary Oldman right. And he is clearly hopefully having fun. Looks like he is again probably on set for two weeks. Yes. And playing an awful dictator from Belarus who’s, you know on trial for war crimes. So you have all of that and then great action.
Joe: And that’s a bit like to me it’s a perfect, perfect, great bad movie. And every possible way you have great actors doing great things. Amazing action. Yeah, maybe annoying music. But again, if that’s our one critique.
Greg: Yeah. If I’m complaining about the music, that means I had to look a while.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Okay, so the moment when Salma Hayek and Samuel Jackson are talking on the phone and she is being hilarious and they’re just like, berating each other, she hears pain in his voice because he’s basically like doing John McClane when he’s pulling glass out of his feet and Die Hard. Yeah, he’s kind of doing that. And she turns on a dime.
Greg: Yeah, showing that she cares about him. That was the movie that made me think, oh, this movie has like, super powers. Yeah, it is hilarious. It’s funny, it’s irreverent. But also, oh my gosh, these people truly love each other. And this is like a real relationship.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s pulling out, like more than it needs to, you know. Yeah. But let a thousand flowers grow, you know, like they’re just pulling everything they can. And that was the moment for me when I was going like, oh, okay, I’m in. I’m 1,000% in wherever we go from here. And then it just keeps getting better and better and better.
Joe: Yeah, I agree that that one moment where he is like, oh, you really do care about each other.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Because then everything else that she does becomes that much more funny to me the second that like she’s like, oh, she’s actually got a heart and they love each other.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then she’s making her roommates.
Greg: In the corner. It’s like.
Joe: Okay, the other thing that they do, there’s a mole inside Interpol. Wow. And they make it really obvious who it is. Yeah. Again by the act. So nothing is subtle in this movie. If you’re looking for subtlety and like, like this is not, a drama where you’re looking for really just, like, minutes, moments. It’s. Yeah, this person’s a bad guy.
Joe: So, like, he is touching, inappropriate, not inappropriately, not like, sexually harassing, but like, like arm. And so Ryan Reynolds’s ex-girlfriends boss, that’s a convoluted way to say that. He’s very touchy feely with her. As a note to say, don’t trust this guy. Right. And he’s clearly the bad guy.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Or one of the bad guys in it. And so, like, you know, those are again, those little moments that to me just tell the story of there’s no subtlety here, right? Or leaning into all the kinds of tropes you can imagine and love and enjoy.
Greg: We have to say that her boss is Joaquim de Almeida, who was the bad guy in Fast Five. Yeah, Golden Helicopter award winning best Picture, fast five from 2025 on the Bad Movie podcast. I’ve been getting questions about, like, how many, awards did fast five get? You know, what’s the breakdown from the Golden Helicopters? So I will be posting those to our Instagram feed.
Greg: Great Bad Movies show. If you missed the green and the Golden Helicopters or you want to relive the glory, that was our awards show. But, the bad guy from the best fast and Furious movie is like a subpar bad guy. Yeah, he’s like a subreddit thread of the bad guy in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Oh my gosh. I mean, that makes sense to me.
Greg: Gary Oldman has got to be number one bad guy, obviously. Yeah, and I like to think he’s playing the exact he’s playing the same character that he played in Air Force One. It’s the same guy, I think.
Joe: Yeah, he survived.
Greg: But he was saving some, in Air Force One so he could truly be the bad guy in this movie. Yeah. Gary Oldman learned conversational Russian.
Joe: Only Gary Oldman for this movie was learn conversational Russian for.
Greg: The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Let Oldman be Oldman. Yeah, unbelievable. There are so many good action scenes in this movie. Way more than we need.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I think some people would say too many, but I am not in that camp.
Joe: No.
Greg: One of the great action scenes that happens in this movie is basically like a heat style gunfight. And on a street between vans, how many vans blow up in this movie, Joe?
Joe: All of them.
Greg: There are so many vehicles that blow up at this movie. Yeah, but, one of the first ones is on this road. It blows up, lunges forward, and it’s on like a it’s like on one forward wheel for a little while as it as it’s exploding in slow motion, it’s unbelievable. And they’re always showing like a stunt guy running in slow motion as it is exploding.
Greg: One guy gets like flipped over by one of the explosions, which should just happen every time. Once that’s happening once. It’s like a Tony Scott. You got to do that every time now. Yeah, don’t tempt me with a good time. But he does, flipping in slow motion every time there’s an explosion. Now.
Joe: I think that this movie really rides the line. There’s a lot of CGI blood splatter. Yeah, I forgive movies. Now I get why. You know, it’s too hard to do squibs and all of that and like to have it match and every.
Greg: Little Deadpool as well.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. But there’s a lot of practical stunts and real explosions in it that I appreciated as well. And so like, they did a really nice job of riding that line of CGI and real stunts.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: And they’re using slo mo in this movie is outstanding. I mean, so Samuel Jackson is being driven to The Hague and like, he’s chained up and there’s one like at the caravan of a van that are going to explode. And then basically he’s like, you got to give me a gun. I can help us out here. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Great hero shot of him with a gun walking through the smoke. Yeah. In slow motion to then, like, save the day. It is glorious.
Greg: He is so incredible at shooting bad guys. Sometimes.
Greg: This is such an amazing, great, bad movie. Because he. Once we get close to the top of the the car seat, once we get anywhere near Old Oldman for the life of him, he cannot hit him.
Joe: But a bad guy 3000 yards away.
Greg: Every time Samuel L Jackson is willing to jump down and tire flights of stairs in one leap. Yeah, to kill people in this movie, we should say Samuel Jackson was, what, 77 years, 67 when he made this movie? The majority of this movie is Samuel Jackson in a shadow or in a shot where you can’t see his face.
Greg: His stunt double is doing so much heavy lifting in this movie. This and this movie is 2017. He’s using his stunt double from the same stunt double since The Long Kiss Goodnight. Jesus in what was that like 1994.
Joe: 95, 95, 95, 96? Maybe. So the stunt doubles also did.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Needs a stunt double.
Greg: Yes. And I love that Sam Jackson is just we just are cool with it. Like, yeah, he’s jumping down stairs. He’s jumping down things. They sell it pretty well. Although while the majority in the movie, you can’t see him even when it’s like they’re walking down hallways and there must have been a golf course nearby because that’s.
Joe: Yeah, gotta be.
Greg: It. Sam Jackson is doing most of the time when he’s in a movie, he’s playing golf.
Joe: The editing on there should be noted for how? Well, yep, they make him look like he is fighting all of those people.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: There are a few. There were a few moments where I enjoyed looking for the stunt double in the action scenes, but yeah, I kind of a little attempt at a fun game if you’re enjoying, if you’re watching a really bad movie, sometimes that can be a fun thing to do. Just like, oh, look at that person who is like ducking their head in a way that no one ever would.
Joe: So keep it out of the frame of the camera and stuff like that.
Greg: So love it.
Joe: A little bit of that, but for the most part, you’ll forgive it because everything else is so perfect. About his his performance.
Greg: It’s I mean, it’s an art to itself. How do you hide the sun guy? And in David Lee movies, they’re just constantly covering their face. In this movie. They’re shooting it in a way that you can’t. They don’t have to do that as much. So we got to talk about Patrick Hughes, man.
Joe: Yeah. Can we, sidebar for one second about David Lynch? Mainly because I heard about a movie that’s coming out that we have to see in the theaters.
Greg: Of course. Go on.
Joe: I need to look this up. But it’s a movie directed by David Lynch.
Greg: I’m in.
Joe: Yeah, so I’m in, right. Then I can.
Greg: Stop talking right now.
Joe: So it’s a movie with Jason Statham where Jason Statham plays himself. Directed by David.
Greg: Lynch. What’s it called?
Joe: That’s what I’m trying to find.
Greg: While you’re looking for that, we often watch a lot of movies in between episodes of the show. Yeah, that are unrelated to this, and we kind of don’t talk about it much on the mic. So I should tell you that I have seen shelter, the new Jason Statham movie, and it is the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life.
Greg: Okay, it’s in theaters. It’s made like $1,000 internationally, and it is the greatest movie you will ever watch in history. Okay, it was so good.
Joe: That the one where he’s protecting the kid.
Greg: Yeah, I mean, okay, you got a of heads. Yeah. In this economy, you got to protect these children.
Joe: So Jason Statham reunites with David Lee for new big budget action comedy Jason Statham Stole My Bike.
Greg: The movie.
Joe: I don’t need any more information.
Greg: It sounds fake.
Joe: It does sound fake.
Greg: That kind of sounds like a Quibi show from 2019. Yeah.
Joe: Speaking of David Lee, I did just watch Bullet Train again and it’s awesome.
Greg: It’s pretty good,
Joe: It’s really.
Greg: Good. Ryan Reynolds has a cameo.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s really Reynolds heavy week for you.
Joe: That’s a Reynolds every week. Yeah, I had forgotten how much I love that movie.
Greg: Oh, weekend. The bullet train. Are you kidding me? Is that the next David Lynch movie? We’ll do.
Joe: It. Depends on when Jason Statham stole my bike.
Greg: Maybe we should do every David Lynch movie leading up to that.
Joe: I agree with that.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: Don’t tempt me with a good time.
Greg: Well, speaking of watching movies to lead up to director’s current movies, we have a little bit of luck going on right now because Patrick Hughes next movie comes out next week.
Joe: Oh, sweet.
Greg: On Netflix. Let’s talk about Patrick Hughes for a second. Joe, when was the first time Patrick Hughes came on your radar?
Joe: It was probably this movie, The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Greg: I bet it was. The first time I had heard of him was the time that I watched the movie that zero people liked, and I absolutely freaked out about it. It was like screaming from the rooftops about. And that is a movie called The Expendables three, which is so good. And we will definitely get to The Expendables three.
Greg: And I couldn’t tell you anything about any of the other Expendables, because this one was the one where I was like, hold up, this is actually kind of amazing. And it is totally because of Patrick Hughes. And this is kind of like when a producer of albums is so good and you start tracking with them across different artists and you’re like, yeah, no, this producer is incredible.
Greg: And every band or artist that they work with, I’m on board with because it’s that producer in the room. I feel that way about this dude. He made The Expendables three, I freaked out, everyone dismissed it. And then you told me about The Hitman’s Bodyguard. I was like, oh my gosh, this is my guy. It’s not just a one off.
Greg: It wasn’t just, that was better than I expected. No. Now we’ve got The Expendables three and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. So let me start by saying I went back. There is a short film that Patrick Hughes directed. It was for a company. It was like he was making a lot of commercials. And he made this, this short film called signs that became his calling card and became the thing that made him a hirable director for Hollywood.
Greg: I’m going to put the short film on the web page for this episode at Great Bad movies.com. It’s really great. It’s a sweet little eight ten minute short film about people who work in buildings next to each other. They have like corporate jobs, and they only speak to each other by writing on pieces of paper. They never actually talk to each other.
Greg: It’s a really sweet little romantic movie. You might hate it because there’s like romance in it. Yeah. So you should stay away from great bad movies.com this week. Yeah, it’s going to be super romantic.
Joe: For a second, I thought you were going to say that he made a movie called Low Scandalous two, and I was going to be pulling.
Greg: How many short films could we do between Low Speed, The Last One and Fast and Furious four? How about for so many? There’s so much room. Okay, we can do like a Rogue One. We could do a Rogue Two.
Joe: That’s right.
Greg: Every minute. Okay, great. Yeah. All right, so Patrick Hughes designs. Great little, short film. We’ll put it on great bad movies. Dot com. He made a western called Red Hill. He’s Australian, by the way. So he made a movie called Red Hill, a Western. That was well received. Sylvester Stallone sees it, hires them for Expendables three.
Greg: Expendables three gets leaked on the internet. This is one of those, like it got leaked on the internet the weekend before it came out, or the week before it came out. And it didn’t do well in America. Well, because critics didn’t really like it, but also everyone just kind of downloaded it, I think. But it still did well internationally.
Greg: Then he makes The Hitman’s Bodyguard, makes The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, then he made The Man from Toronto, which came out in 2022. Does that name ring a bell? It’s got Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson.
Joe: No it does, and I’m looking at it right now. I’m going to watch it.
Greg: I’ll just say this right now. I watched like the first 45 minutes of it last night. We will totally get to the man from Toronto.
Joe: Okay, sweet.
Greg: But War Machine, there’s a movie coming out on Netflix next Friday and it has Alan Ritchson, the guy who plays Jack Reacher on the Amazon Prime show. He was also in Fast and Furious ten. So that’s probably what you know. I’m from. Yes. And it looks a little bit like a Transformers movie. There’s an alien robot in the woods going after the military knife, if that’s all you know.
Greg: How do you feel about it?
Joe: That’s all I need. All right. I am famously in the tank for the Netflix action movies.
Greg: Yes, totally.
Joe: You know, forgive me. I hold this movie up with The Gray Man. The Hitman’s Bodyguard, to me is a crowd pleaser.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Gray man, crowd pleaser. I will watch it every single time I see it. Anytime I can. I’m in. So that is how I feel about this. So yeah, I will totally watch War Machine.
Greg: Esai Morales from Mission Impossible seven and eight, Jai Courtney from I heard five. What could go wrong here? Nothing. Nothing at all. I am totally going to watch this movie. It’s co-written and directed by Patrick Hughes. I am Patrick Hughes biggest fan. I’m pointing at the fence. I’m Babe Ruth at the plate saying, this guy is going to go down as one of our great as much like Justin Lin.
Joe: You heard it here first. Great bad Patrick Hughes movies is basically what we’re changing this this podcast do.
Greg: Absolutely. And I don’t want to put the word bad in there. I think he’s making ridiculous movies on purpose because. And they’re super funny too. This guy is a sense of humor that I’m telling you. There is so much going on in The Hitman’s Bodyguard that is impossible, and this guy is making it look so easy.
Joe: Yep. Agreed.
Greg: All right. That’s. Thanks for letting me. Yeah, yeah, we’ll do a full Ted talk about about Patrick Hughes. I love this dude. I really think this guy is is something that we all need to be paying attention to. So he’s not afraid to put Lionel Richie in a scene and then have Salma Hayek just violently kill a bunch of people in a bar fight.
Greg: Yeah, and Samuel Jackson falls in love with her. This is like their meet. Cute. Yeah. Okay, just a couple more things. We got to talk about Greg Powell for a second as we’re talking about like, the magic of this movie and the crew of people that came together to make it happen. Greg Powell we are going to talk about a lot of his movies.
Greg: He did stunts in the movie F1. He did stunt coordinating, and Angel’s Fallen. We talked about that. He did stunts in World War Z. He was the supervising stunt coordinator, which is a very high position on Fast and Furious six. The bank job was Statham Valkyrie with Tom cruise, written by Christopher McQuarrie. By the way, he’s involved with the Bourne franchise.
Greg: He’s done stuff in the Da Vinci Code kind of series, which was kind of under sun. He is all over the place. I think we need to give it up for Greg Powell, first of all, for breaking half the bones that have broken inside Ryan Reynolds, but also just he is the kind of person who is making the kind of movies that make us feel alive.
Joe: Yeah, I agree, and all of those movies you have named are well worth watching for the action scenes alone. So welcome to the podcast, Greg Powell.
Greg: We talked about Mission Impossible quite a bit when we talked about Mission Impossible to. My guy is the stunt coordinator on Mission Impossible in 1996.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: Wherever he’s walking around right now, he’s walking with his head high because he has just nailed it for decades. At this point. So, thank you, Greg Powell, for all of your work. It really is like the joy of my life, looking at the work that these people have done. I mean, like, oh my gosh, his aspect of that movie is one of my favorite things about that movie.
Greg: Yeah, Greg Powell nice work back there, man. Before we move on, I want to say you had some harsh words for how Air Force One did not let Gary Oldman cook.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: In 1997. This is a full 20 years later 2017. Do you feel like they let Gary Oldman cook the way you would have liked?
Joe: It’s better. I would have liked more. I love Gary Oldman. I’m in the tank for Gary Oldman. I think should you know, it’s one of our greatest living actors.
Greg:
Joe: I still feel underutilized. You know this would probably be a, a conversation for a different podcast.
Greg: But it needs to happen.
Joe: Yes absolutely. But who is the Mount Rushmore of bad guys? Alan Rickman I will put Alan Rickman in the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner, Prince of Thieves.
Greg: He’s also on other two. Alan Rickman, Alan Rickman on your.
Joe: I’m telling you.
Greg: He is.
Joe: So good. He saved that movie. You didn’t have to watch that movie 7000 times on HBO when it came out.
Greg: Apparently you get four faces and one of them is Alan Rickman. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Yes.
Joe: And one of them is Alan Rickman in Die Hard.
Greg: Is Snape’s on there? I mean, are we going Harry Potter as well? Is there any other Alan Rickman you feel like deserves to be on there? Before you move on to other actors for our first spot.
Joe: Maybe from Love Actually.
Greg: Only a bad guy would flirt with someone at the mall, and I apologize.
Joe: Who are your best bad guys ever?
Greg: Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can answer this off the dome like this. I will say the bad guy and Mission Impossible five.
Joe: Yeah, because crosses over in the sex.
Greg: Yep. Alan Rickman’s on there for me for sure. In love actually. Now there’s other movies you mentioned. Yeah, okay. And then I’m going to put lightning McQueen from the movie cars because he was super selfish for a while there. And selfishness is the bad guy in that movie. That’s right. You don’t put Darth Vader on the bad guy.
Greg: Hall of Fame. No Mount Rushmore really.
Joe: Now, because it turned out good.
Greg: The you don’t respect it?
Joe: No.
Greg: So weak to turn good.
Joe: We will come back to this, dear listeners. And if you want to play along with us, shoot us something on our Instagram of what your favorite bad guy is from an action movie. And we’ll have the discussion that needs to be had at some point around the best bad guys we’ve ever seen, because I feel like this is a conversation that needs some research, but also needs to be had.
Joe: So yeah.
Greg: We will post about this episode on Instagram and give us your Mount Rushmore of bad guys and we will be able to better post our Mount Rushmore about, because there is an unlimited supply of Russian bad guys in this movie and you know them. The second they’re on the screen like, oh, that’s another Russian bad guy.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This movie is super long because they had so many Russian bad guys to go through.
Joe: That’s a lot. It was tiring work, really.
Greg: Joe, it occurs to me, as we talk about The Hitman’s Bodyguard, that there’s a chance that there are some people out there who maybe haven’t seen it. I think we should pretend like we’re walking up and down the hallways of a video store. It’s as if you’re in Ready Player One right now, and you’re walking up and down the hallways of something you’re super nostalgic about, let’s say, a Blockbuster Video, okay?
Greg: And you’re picking up these boxes VHS, Blu ray, DVD. We don’t know how you live your life. You’re reading the back of these boxes to see which movie you should actually rent tonight. That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box. Who do you call when the package must get delivered safely? You call Michael Bryce. Ryan Reynolds, even when the package is the world’s deadliest hitman. Darius Kincaid, played by Samuel L Jackson. Michael Bryce always delivers on the run and trying to beat the clock. Michael Bryce and Darius Kincaid must navigate the bad guys, each other and a mole in their pool with the deck stacked against them and their backs against the wall.
Joe: You wouldn’t bet on anyone else to deliver.
Greg: Wow. That’s incredible.
Joe: You rent that movie.
Greg: I think I read that movie basically. If you had said, on the back of the box, Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool and Samuel Jackson, Nick Fury, I think I would have rented it in 2017. That’s all I needed to hear.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: You know, what’s funny is I don’t think we’ve had the conversation that needed to be had about Samuel L Jackson. That’s wild. Yeah. Where do you stand on Samuel L Jackson?
Joe: He is a national treasure. Yeah, and I want to see him and everything.
Greg: He isn’t everything. If there’s a golf course close by. Hey. Yeah.
Joe: I am all in on Samuel L Jackson for me. I go all the way back to do the right thing with Samuel L Jackson. That was I think, the first movie I saw him in. He’s amazing in that. And then where he, to me hit his stride was Die Hard three. I mean, I love him as as Zeus and that movie providing a good counterpoint.
Joe: That’s kind of where.
Greg: This.
Joe: Funny buddy of the hero character that he has perfected. Yeah, started for me also in the Long Kiss Goodnight movie.
Greg: Oh, sure. We talked about him there, of course.
Joe: Yeah. Where do you stand on Samuel L Jackson?
Greg: Incredibly hit and miss. Obviously I love him, but I also feel like he will be in anything that has a golf course close by.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: In the special features for this movie, he says he is very specific about what he will and won’t do, and I don’t think that’s true.
Joe: Probably fair.
Greg: I mean, The Long Kiss Goodnight is one of the greatest movies. Is it good night or good bye?
Joe: I think it’s good night.
Greg: Okay. We’ve already had the conversation that needed to happen. Yeah. That movie. So. Yeah. Incredible in that movie. Incredible in a million movies like Pulp Fiction or Die Hard three. Of course. This is one of the great ones. This is one of the absolutely great ones. And there’s such a sense of relief that happens when you realize you’re watching one of the great ones.
Greg: Yeah, this is one of the great ones for a lot of reasons, but especially because of Samuel Jackson. I like how much he laughs in this movie. Yeah, the director apparently just loved it when Ryan Reynolds was, like, conflicted on his face and and Samuel Jackson was laughing. And then he like showing that in the same frame. This is what this movie sounds like a lot of the time.
Greg: And there’s a lot of that in this movie. Yeah. And I was into it like that.
Greg: Well, Joe, you’ve given us, like, the marketing and back of the box and.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Then I decided to go on a total rabbit hole. And I appreciate you letting me do that. But you know what? Something rang a little false about your back in the box.
Joe: Okay?
Greg: Something felt a little disconnected, like, we weren’t getting the truth. And so I’m wondering if we can go on down the honest town and get the real Joe guy. Tucker, back of the box.
Joe: This movie is amazing. Watch it. You will not be disappointed. It is legit funny. The action scenes are great. Salma Hayek is a hilarious, the plot is ludicrous, and there’s almost an afterthought to the amazing chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson. Just watch it right now. No spoilers, but the best drinking game to play during this movie is to take a drink every time they say triple AA.
Joe: You’re welcome. And also you will be drunk 20 minutes in.
Greg: Is this movie better if you’re drunk? Probably depends on the person, I suppose, whether they are someone who should drink or not. Yeah.
Joe: And again, you don’t have to be drinking alcohol. No.
Greg: I feel like drink sales are going way down because people are picking up on the fact that it’s really not that good for you.
Joe: Yeah. It’s like a poison that’s like killing you. Yeah. Anyway, I’m going to have some more wine.
Greg: Yeah, I’m gonna have some more of my mocktail. All right. Joe. Well, should we get to the box office? And the critical response to this movie?
Joe: Let’s do it.
Greg: All right. This movie came out in Indonesia anyway, and in August of 2017. I don’t know why. That’s the date we get. We have to play the game, Joe. Guess is the budget of a movie. What do you think the budget was for The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Joe: Filmed in Europe? I feel like those generally are a little cheaper. Okay, I’m going to go 85 million.
Greg: This movie was made for $30 million. What?
Joe: And so that’s ridiculously cheap these days.
Greg: That gives me all the hope I need that everything is going to be okay on this planet. Many times the digital effects look fake, but because they’re doing the digital effects are for a laugh. Yeah, I’m into it. It’s totally fine. Yeah, like bouncing tire on fire going by as Ryan Reynolds is nonplused. That’s funny. I don’t care that it totally looks fake.
Greg: So this movie made $75.5 million in America. It made 107 million, almost $108 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $183 million, 431,000.
Joe: Wow. So people got got some money off of this movie. Yeah, it made a lot of money.
Greg: This was a huge hit. And when you have a one year old, you aren’t even aware that the best kind of movie, your favorite kind of movie has come out. That’s what I learned. What do you think the critics response to this movie was? What’s the critic review? The Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes? Joe.
Joe: Man, does it feel like a 70 to me?
Greg: Yeah, because it. Yeah. No, it’s there’s some good stuff. But then also.
Joe: You know. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I want to say critics would have gotten this. So I’m going to go a little higher than a 70. I’m going to go like it. I’m going to go in 83.
Greg: I like I love where you went with this because it’s a 44. Critics were lukewarm. And you know what? It doesn’t matter what the critics say sometimes of the great bad movies. That’s true. What do you think the audience score is? On Rotten Tomatoes? We’ve got 25,000 ratings. It obviously could be all bots. What do you think the audience score is?
Greg: The popcorn meter is on. On Rotten Tomatoes.
Joe: I’ll go a little low. I’ll go 75.
Greg: 67.
Joe: The critics and and the people watch us missed the boat on this movie. That’s where I am.
Greg: You know, this is one of those things where I usually feel like Rotten Tomatoes is about right. I feel like, yeah, there’s just something in my gut. Something in my heart says Rotten Tomatoes is wrong on this one.
Joe: Yeah, this is way low to me.
Greg: All right. So let’s let’s hear what some of these critics said on Rotten Tomatoes. We always start with our hometown paper. The Seattle Times saw in Anderson reviewed this movie and said standard stuff, but it’s got more humor and zest than most movies of its kind, and that makes it pretty darn enjoyable. Three out of four stars.
Joe: I’ll allow it. But really, I just feel like, did they not watch this movie? It’s perfect in every way.
Greg: Pretty darn enjoyable. Is is a pretty good top critic review for.
Joe: Yeah, going to be I mean that’s a good name for this show too.
Greg: Pretty pretty darn enjoyable isn’t bad. Yeah that’s true. All right Saunderson give us gives it three out of four stars. What amount of stars are you okay with.
Joe: Like three and a half out of four is like okay okay. Now on this.
Greg: Movie. All right. Watch yourself soaring walking. Seriously, I know just Guy Tucker has his eye on you.
Joe: Coming for you.
Greg: It’s like Allison Wilkinson from Vox says it’s a shame, mostly because The Hitman’s Bodyguard had the potential to be a weird, funny summer flick. Two out of five stars. Yeah. Rough. It’s rough out here. Roger Ebert come says, well, no one is going to mistake The Hitman’s Bodyguard for high art. It will please those in the mood for late summer fun.
Joe: Yeah. So there you get it. Yeah, I’ll allow it.
Greg: Two and a half out of four stars. And it’s true. This is the most August August release movie in history.
Joe: I love that.
Greg: Like The Beekeeper is the most January movie in history. Until this year, a shelter. Shelter was unbelievable. Not as much beekeeping as I would have liked, I’ll be honest. There was very little beekeeping.
Joe: Lots of shelter though, lots of houses.
Greg: So much sheltering. But this movie in August get out of here 2017. We didn’t know how good we had it. All right, Kevin Meyer from the Times UK. Now Kevin Maher we’ve talked about is notoriously hot and cold on movies. New game. What do you think Kevin Morris said about this movie? Do you think he was hot or cold on this?
Joe: I think it’s cold on this.
Greg: Okay. A movie that replicates step by formulaic step, the familiar and now oddly dated template of the interracial buddy movie of the 80s thing 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon one out of five stars. Wow. Yeah. Hey, this is, I would love to talk to Kevin Meyer on this show sometime. Yeah. Kevin Meyer is one of my favorite reviewers in all of film review history.
Joe: We’re just going to go. What were you thinking on The Hitman’s Bodyguard?
Greg: No, he’s just he’s wearing his feelings out on his sleeve, and I love it. John Anderson, who has written some great reviews for The Wall Street Journal, says one has to give Mr. Hughes credit for the numerous creative and explosive obstacles he puts in the way of Michael and Darius. Not so much for the scattershot tone of the movie as a whole.
Joe: I just I feel like they missed the they missed the mark on this movie. Everyone, every you, Matthew and me.
Greg: Yes. We get it. Tribune news service. Now, you know that I’m kind of digging. Yeah, I’m going to the Tribune News Service. I’ve never even heard of it. But Rick Bentley says Jackson and Reynolds are so good at handling this kind of verbal sparring that they make up for the weakness in both the direction and writing. Two and a half out of four stars.
Joe: Wow, they hated this movie.
Greg: I’m not going to lie, that’s one of the good ones.
Greg: This one has. My favorite should have been the title of Great Bad Movies, the podcast Globe and Mail. Kate Taylor says the political realism doesn’t sit well with, And here’s the title. Exploding cars, singing nuns and quipping killers.
Greg: Thank you. Kate. Exploding cars, singing nuns and quipping killers is for sure going to be the name of this podcast.
Joe: Way better.
Greg: All right, Adam Graham, we’ve written we’ve read some great reviews by Adam Graham from the Detroit News. He says The Hitman’s Bodyguard comes at you hard but skates by on his time. Kiss kiss. Bang bang. B-minus.
Joe: Wow. All right. I allow it up until the B-minus, but I guess it’s a B plus if if not a minus.
Greg: Yeah, but basically everybody was like, you know what? Patrick Hughes, there’s something here. All right. Joe, this movie was a blast to watch. And one thing that would make it even more enjoyable is if you hang out with your friends and you play some drinking games. Should we get to drinking games?
Joe: Oh, let’s do it again. It doesn’t have to be alcohol. Can be water. Juice. Coffee mocktail. Tea.
Greg: Coconut water.
Joe: Coconut. I mean, if you want something that tastes good. Not coconut water, but liquid ivy.
Greg: If you need to get hydrated.
Joe: I mean, Four Loko. Let’s do it.
Greg: Maybe Five Loko. I don’t know how UVA to Vita. Okay.
Joe: Does it have a silent helicopter slash. Does it. Is there a helicopter in this. Oh yeah. There is in the beginning very much a CGI helicopter. It’s awesome.
Greg: Not a silent out of nowhere though.
Joe: Not a silent out of nowhere. It’s not that classic okay.
Greg: You know. Yeah.
Joe: Push it and enhance. So we have in the trial we have some of the of what Gary Oldman has done as the president of Belarus. Kind of flashed pictures. When two people share a slow motion look at the middle of chaos. Oh we got a couple of those.
Greg: Wait can I play the audio from that. Because it’s also kind of epic. Yes please. Not like Golden Helicopter award winning fast five epic. But listen to this.
Clip: One slows down. Yeah.
Joe: They get both a slow motion look and an explosion with silent suffering ringing in the ear.
Greg: Is no ringing in years though.
Joe: Yeah, we don’t really get that. But we get the silent suffering.
Greg: Amazing, amazing.
Joe: Yeah. So get those two opening credits. Scene title locks in place with the sound. Oh, yeah.
Greg: Can we hear it again? You’re one.
Greg: That’s it. Coming together right there. And then it explodes off the screen right there. Amazing.
Joe: It’s perfect. Doesn’t flash back to dialog two minutes ago. Oh, it flashes back.
Greg: Flashes back a lot.
Joe: Yeah, by the flash back then this take a drink. Crazy CGI, bad CGI.
Greg:
Joe: The CGI is actually pretty good in this movie. There are a few moments. There’s the tire. You mentioned the flaming tire. Yeah. They lean heavily into the CGI blood splatter and that gets a little old for me.
Greg: So helicopter exploding at the end on the roof.
Joe: That’s for us.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: But for the most part the CGI is pretty strong in this movie. Yeah, great bad shots are everywhere in this movie. One of my pet peeves is when Samuel L Jackson in the chase scene is like, they shoot his door with like a million bullets and nothing hit them.
Greg: This happens so many to movie.
Joe: Yeah, yeah yeah.
Greg: Be overstated how many great bad shots there are? Yes. Oh, it’s.
Joe: Crazy. Inexplicably wet streets. Oh, yeah. All over the place in this movie, from the opening scene where Ryan Reynolds steps in a puddle to the scene over there in the in the woods to the final chase scene, we have Interpol plays a key pivotal wow role in this movie. Awesome. We have a cell phone smash, which I was super happy about.
Joe: The only thing we don’t have is a give us the room moment, which I think about it. I’m wondering if Gary Oldman asks for the room when he stabs the Interpol mole in the hand? I don’t remember.
Greg: I don’t think so. It’s a real omission, though. It’s missing.
Joe: Yeah, it should have been. There should have been an opportunity. Yeah. Those are start drinking games and I toss it to you, Greg Swineherd, to kick us off. I feel like we’re going to have a fair amount of the same one.
Greg: So every time they say triple A rated, take a drink.
Joe: So that was my first one too.
Greg: Oh, can I interrupt real quick? Sure. Patrick Hughes, the director himself, during the commentary, played a drinking game. That’s how perfect this movie is, Joe.
Joe: That’s awesome.
Greg: He took a drink every time Samuel Jackson said the F-word.
Joe: Oh, that’s a tough one.
Greg: While he was doing the commentary.
Joe: That’s awesome. My first one after triple A-rated is anytime they say boring is best, they can drink.
Greg: That’s really good. That’s a really good one. Anytime a fake helicopter flies by the camera and fake takes it awesome.
Joe: My next one is anytime they mention how the car smells, take a drink.
Greg: Any time. Sam Jackson laughs.
Joe: Oh, I love that one. I have every time he sings.
Greg: Oh that’s good. So let us singing in this movie.
Joe: There he is.
Greg: By the way. Sam Jackson has like some real joy in this film.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Kind of amazing. Yeah. Any time they cut to the cell, mate in the corner, I’m standing in the corner. Take a drink.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Nice. I have anytime Salma Hayek swears at someone. Take a.
Greg: Drink. That’s good. I have anytime a vehicle blows up. Oh.
Joe: It drink at a this movie.
Greg: And each time you take a drink, you’re going to love this movie. More like, oh my gosh, how many vehicles could possibly blow up in a movie?
Joe: It’s so good. And there’s a great scene in the kind of in the middle of the movie where they play it for a laugh, to where the the van that the bad guys that found them in the woods.
Greg:
Joe: And then like just like a random bullet like fires off and blows up the. It’s perfect. It’s awesome. Every time Sam Jackson’s character is described as unkillable take a drink.
Greg: Oh that’s solid. Any time there is slow motion. Oh take a drink. It’s not like John Woo but it’s more, it’s more than you think.
Joe: It’s a lot.
Greg: This movie would have been shorter. Yeah.
Joe: Like five minutes shorter.
Greg: Noticeably shorter if they had just as much fun as they are.
Joe: Anytime the Interpol mole touches.
Greg: A lot of young.
Joe: Yeah. Any time he touches her, take a drink.
Greg: That’s really good. It’s a.
Joe: Lot. Every scene they’re in together, he does. It’s gross.
Greg: Yeah, he is pretty disgusting. He’s like fast five. Disgusting. Yeah.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: I mean, I have to say, any time there’s a Lionel Richie needle drop.
Joe: Yeah. Finish your drink.
Greg: Finish your drink.
Joe: Yeah. Cause you only get one in that, and that’s perfect.
Greg: No, I think it’s more than one.
Joe: Oh, I think you’re right. I think any time they’re in that bar that song is playing. But. So twice at least.
Greg: At least twice. Yeah.
Joe: Any time there is reference to your thing is not my thing. Take a drink.
Greg: I was going to say every time it flashes back and there’s a different color, but we have any time there’s a flashback as one of our stock drinking games.
Joe: So but I think that the, the change in the color story should be noted because it’s pronounced. So I think you should keep that one. That’s what I’m saying.
Greg: Maybe drink just a little bit more.
Joe: Just a little bit more. Yeah okay. Absolutely. Any time Ryan Reynolds tosses a gun.
Greg: Oh that’s great. It’s crazy when he tosses some of those guns, there’s like a little, almost like cartoon sound effects. Yeah, that happens a few times in this movie. There was like a cartoon sound effect for something. Yeah. Take a drink.
Joe: Absolutely. Anytime they hotwire a car or drive a different car in this movie, take a drink.
Greg: That’s really solid. That’s really solid. I’m out.
Joe: I have one more. Anytime that you hear a soul song in the soundtrack, take a drink.
Greg: Really good, really good music in this movie. And it was $30 million.
Joe: Yeah. It’s crazy. I cannot believe $30 million. I must have gotten a lot of points off the back end, but.
Greg: They filmed in Bulgaria and okay, that was really Amsterdam. And then I think there’s a little bit of la.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: All right. So I think it’s come down to it. It’s time for Jo’s Trope Lightning Round aka signs. You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: Sweet. So I have two new tropes at the top here. So when someone is stabbed through the hand with a pen on the desk, and then when, the odd couple first meet and they fight and they kind of fight to a draw, basically, that’s trope.
Greg: It’s good. He passes out, Samuel Jackson passes out because.
Joe: You.
Greg: Know, Ryan Reynolds kicks him in his in his gunshot wound and he’s just bleeding out. Great.
Joe: That’s great. That’s a great scene a car chase in another country where they kind of drive through a market.
Greg:
Joe: We have a color filters basically on Ryan Reynolds mood and this one.
Greg: But take it.
Joe: Sort of the best at something. I mean Samuel Jackson clearly is the best killer in the world. Yeah. Ryan Reynolds might be the best bodyguard in the world. Odd couple unlikely partnership. You have a charismatic antagonist in Gary Oldman. You sort of have the henchmen who are allowed to hurt the good guys, although that’s not played up as much.
Joe: We have a lot of explosions on impact for car crashes. Conversations in the middle of a car chase. Amazing recovery time. Medical care from a love interest partner for veterans. These fixing up his leg as he’s talking to Salma Hayek checking to see if a gun is loaded. Someone disappears behind the bus and the protagonist is captured.
Joe: We didn’t even talk about this scene, but as and is not killed right away in this torture. So Ryan Reynolds character is.
Greg: Oh yeah.
Joe: Is captured in this, and this is Lethal Weapon. Yeah. So that is our trope lightning round. Oh, and I would throw in a little bit of downloading a file under pressure in that they have a, there is a time crunch that they need to get to the courthouse by 5:00 or the charges are going to be dismissed, which is totally not a thing.
Joe: But that’s fine.
Greg: Yeah, the clock is ticking on this movie. They start with 27 hours. We have 27 hours to get you where you need to go. Yeah. Old school downloading, driving someplace.
Joe: Yeah. We might need a separate trope of, like, the clock is ticking. Yeah, it’s driving the plot.
Greg: Sure. All right, Joe, I’ve had it. It’s time for us to talk about the elephant in the room. You ready to get to important questions?
Joe: I’m ready.
Greg: Joe, first important question. Did the Hitman’s Bodyguard hold up, then?
Joe: I don’t know if it did. Come on. Listening to those, reviews of it. I mean, it did really well at the box office, so I think, yes. And but I think the critics missed it. I just think they missed the point of this movie.
Greg: Let me remind you that the critics hated Fast and Furious four.
Joe: That’s true.
Greg: And Planet Earth disagreed with them, and we got Fast five as a result. So I feel like this is a fast four. This is a great bad movie scenario where the people were like, yeah, no, this is great. I’m going to see it.
Joe: So I guess.
Greg: Yeah, it’s a great bad movie.
Joe: It’s great bad movie.
Greg: All right. Doesn’t hold up now.
Joe: I still does every time I watch it. It’s a crowd pleaser for me.
Greg: Again. You’re not checking in with the crowd?
Joe: No, I am the crowd. And it pleases me. Yes. Crowd pleaser. So that’s all I need.
Greg: All right, Joe, in this movie, how hard do they sell the good guy?
Joe: The opening scene of it?
Greg:
Joe: Really hard. Like he’s perfect. He’s the greatest thing. And then we have the fall from grace.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: And there’s a little bit of when a lot of young brings Ryan Reynolds back in the like. Who is this guy? Oh, he was this so a little bit and thus yeah. So good job.
Greg: And obviously a lot with Sam Jackson. Yeah. Yeah. How hard do they sell the bad guy.
Joe: Pretty hard I mean that’s right. You see I mean he’s on trial for war crimes. You actually get to see some of them.
Greg: But are they saying it so that we don’t have to see it? I feel like we see it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s not so much like a dossier of here’s how bad this guy is. It’s not a great bad movie. Shortcut.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: This movie a great classic for that.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: Okay. So not much. This is a hard this is a hard one. I’m hesitant to bring this one up, but sometimes you just have to you have to talk about it, right?
Joe: Yes. Absolutely.
Greg: The best way to work with conflict is, is through. There’s no going around it. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Way.
Greg: Why is there romance in this movie? There’s romance says it’s plural.
Joe: Really? It’s to show how much Samuel Jackson and why he’s motivated.
Greg:
Joe: I’ll allow that. And then it’s also really the motivation for Ryan Reynolds character as well. So there’s romance as the driver of a lot of the the reasons behind the characters motivations.
Greg: Follow up question how good with this movie have been without any of this romance? There is a lot of introspection between these characters. We didn’t talk about this. There’s a lot of talking in this movie. This movie would be much shorter if they didn’t have these dramatic scenes, but these guys just absolutely destroy their amazing.
Joe: Yeah, I think this is one of the rare moment for me of the romance as an integral to the plot of this movie. Yeah, and you need to have it. Oh my gosh. So I’m in on the romance on this movie.
Greg: This might just be the end of this podcast right now.
Joe: Yeah, I know, I don’t know what to say since I love this movie.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, damn.
Joe: It, I.
Greg: Love it. I think if you want miracles to happen, you should expect them to happen around the movie The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Yeah, exactly. All right, Joe, are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: It’s really hard to be.
Greg: Come on. Does it deserve a sequel?
Joe: It deserves a sequel. It did not get the sequel it deserved.
Greg: Okay, I’m going to say yes. You ready?
Joe: Tell me. Yeah.
Greg: All right. I understand that our favorite hitman needs a bodyguard. That’s. Yeah, that’s Hitman’s bodyguard. One on one. Yeah, but would it kill us to provide some security for Ryan Reynolds for once? I mean, what happens if somebody comes after you?
Joe: Seriously? Yeah.
Greg: Okay, so I think the real sequel opportunity here, that should have happened. And I’m going to shame this movie. It should. I’m shooting all over this movie right now. The real sequel that should have happened would have cast Emma Stone as whoever Emma Stone wants to be. We’re getting Emma Stone in this movie. Whatever she feels like playing, I’m okay.
Greg: She’s amazing. We’re lucky to have her. But in this movie, it’s called The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Bodyguard. Finally, someone’s keeping an eye out for Ryan Reynolds character, and it’s Emma Stone. Perfect. So she is everything that Ryan Reynolds used to think he was. Okay. Precise, calm, respected. And she she can’t stand them. The hitman’s bodyguard. Bodyguard. Perfect. It’s happening.
Greg: Okay. Yeah. Does this movie deserves a prequel.
Joe: I would watch? Yes. Wonder this caveat of it’s all about Darius Kincaid. Does he kind of. He’s a hitman with a conscience. And so it’s like his rise to being one of the most powerful hitmen in the world. Oh, you just watch that. Okay. So. Okay. Oh, wow. It.
Greg: I like that idea quite a bit. My idea for a prequel, first of all. Yes, a thousand times yes. We’re doing a prequel, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and it’s a movie that shows all 28 times Sam Jackson has tried to kill Ryan Reynolds and ends in Prague. Has a big finale in Prague.
Joe: Big Prague finale.
Greg: All right, Joe, should The Hitman’s Bodyguard been nominated for Best Picture at the 2018 Oscars?
Joe: Without knowing why it’s been nominated, I already can tell you my answer is probably yes, but what was nominated?
Greg: All right, here’s where it gets really good. Okay, we have already spoken about a 2017 movie, and we said it should be nominated for Best Picture.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: So I’ll start with what was nominated. And I love that this keeps happening to us. This is my favorite thing about about what’s going on on our podcast these days. All right. 2017 Best Picture nominees are the Shape of Water, Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Greg: Now that sounds very familiar because we spoke about this year for John Wick two.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Way back in January 2026.
Joe: Yes, way back when.
Greg: And we said that John Wick two should have been nominated, which now gives us ten nominees. So you said yes, right? Hitman’s bodyguard. Okay, so we need to lose a movie here in The Shape of Water. Call me by your name. Darkest hour. Dunkirk. Get out, Lady Bird, Phantom thread, the post, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. What do you drop?
Joe: Let’s drop three billboards.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. You know what I really love is that Darkest Hour with Gary Oldman was nominated, and now he’s in two movies that were nominated that year.
Joe: Yeah, that’s right. It should have been three. Bring on the heat.
Greg: Yes okay. John Wick two and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. And then everything but Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri I love it. Perfect. Okay, this the greatest podcast in history. Yeah. Okay, Joe, how can The Hitman’s Bodyguard be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: This is one of the rare occasions. No notes. I don’t feel like we need to remake this or change anything. Yeah, although I do feel like we need some selective amnesia around the sequel and just pretend that that never happened.
Greg: It’s not canon is a sequel.
Joe: It’s not canon. Okay? We need a we need a new sequel. If we’re doing a sequel that is not The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Okay? It’s not worth it. But how do you fix this movie?
Greg: I say we do it all again. I loved this cast, but I did have fun thinking about who I would cast almost ten years later. Here’s what I want to know. This is an important question nestled inside. More important questions. Okay, is John David Washington funny?
Joe: Has he been given the opportunity to be funny?
Greg: That’s my question. If he is, he gets Ryan Reynolds part every day of the week. Well, I want to believe that he’s really funny. If he isn’t, we got to go to our backup. And that’s obviously Ryan Gosling. Okay.
Joe: Yes.
Greg: Agreed. Okay, so I’m gonna make some calls. We’re going to find out. Okay. I want to believe that he is funny. And I think he should have that role in the Kincaid role. The Samuel Jackson role. Do you know who Walton Goggins is?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I think we give it to Walton Goggins. I think he’s got the comedic chops. He’s got the gravitas. We could shoot him in the leg at the beginning. So he’s just, like, hobbling around.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Although he’s not as old as, Samuel Jackson was. There’s a chance that he’s not available. He’s gotten a lot of feet off White Lotus.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: You know, if he’s not available, I think we should just use 95 year old Clint Eastwood as Kincaid. It’s probably the same amount of stunt double work as Sam Jackson. So it’s a it’s a wash. Yeah, yeah. All right, so we’ve got John David Washington, and worst case scenario, Clint Eastwood. That’s a great movie. You kidding me?
Joe: Is Clint Eastwood going to direct this do. It’s going to be like always black and white.
Greg: Basically.
Joe: One take for every scene.
Greg: That’s a great question I didn’t think about director.
Joe: I think we bring David Lynch in to direct this.
Greg: Who could be funny and incredibly action filled besides David Lynch, Richard Donner, thank you. Dance. I mean, he was passed away. Yeah. Bo Burnham, I’m giving it to Bo Burnham. Wow.
Joe: All right.
Greg: Did you see eighth grade now? Oh, my gosh, it was I.
Joe: Love I love his stand up.
Greg: So yeah, Bo Burnham could direct the pants off this movie for sure.
Joe: Okay, awesome.
Greg: I’m giving it to Bo Burnham. Here’s one little tweak I wanted to make to the story. Okay, I think we should give the movie, like, more of a moral spine. And by that, I mean, I think getting the hitman to The Hague needs to personally cost both men more. So Kincaid isn’t just going to, like, testify against Gary Oldman, but he has to expose something that Ryan Reynolds did or helped create in order to do it.
Greg: And so Ryan Reynolds is actually leading Kincaid to testify against something that he’s done, but he knows it’s the right thing. So rather than like, protecting the witness, it’s like, protect the truth. Even if it implicates you.
Joe: I either.
Greg: Okay, okay.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay. Album. What album is this?
Joe: I went for, one. I consider one of my. So this to me is a crowd pleaser.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Movie for me.
Greg: Again. We have not spoken with the crowd.
Joe: Crowd. Maybe wrong.
Greg: We’re just going to ask them.
Joe: Yeah, this is LED Zeppelin two, which is one of my favorites. Wow. I put it on. It’s just I love almost every single song on that album.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: It’s just like, make me happy. That’s what this movie does. Every time I watch it, I just I’m filled with joy. So this has led Zeppelin to for me?
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: What about for you? What album is this?
Greg: I have made a massive mistake hearing you give that answer. Okay? For some reason, I was thinking about how critics thought of this movie. Maybe because I had just gone through Rotten Tomatoes and I was not thinking about how I thought of this movie when I came up with this answer. So culturally, this movie made a bazillion dollars.
Greg: But because I had just read a bunch of reviews, it’s kind of viewed as like uneven. And a lot of them said it was like too long, which I disagree with. It contains a bunch of amazing stuff, but it’s not like the go to movie that you would watch for either Ryan Reynolds or Samuel Jackson. It’s a comfort watch, but not it’s not like a classic that we would all agree upon except for you and me, right?
Greg: Obviously. Yeah. And everyone who listens to this episode. Am I crazy or is this Lover by Taylor Swift from 2019? It sold a bazillion records. It’s beloved by a million by everybody. Yeah, it’s not an album. It’s not a go to album for us Swifties. I’m the largest Taylor Swift fan in my family, by the way. Okay, okay.
Greg: I’m the one being like, but she’s amazing, right? We can agree on that. Yeah. Awkward moments at the dinner table. Yeah. I think this is it. Yeah. It’s Love Her by Taylor Swift, which I listened to today, and oh, my gosh, it’s such a good album. But there’s probably like, three other Taylor Swift records that I’m gonna put on before that one.
Greg: And I think that’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Joe: Okay. All right. That’s totally fine. I would just say Ramble On is the song that I would want from up onto versus A Lot of Love, which is gets. Yeah, it’s a great song, but ramble on that.
Greg: All right. So it’s time for us to answer the most important question. It’s time for us to rate this movie. Great bad movie, good bad movie. Okay. Bad movie, bad bad movie, awful bad movie. How do you rate that man’s bodyguard?
Joe: I can in good conscience not call this a great bad movie?
Greg: 100%.
Joe: This movie is is great.
Greg: It’s great. Watching this movie was one of the greatest things I’ve done in my lifetime. Yeah, this was so much fun. Yeah, yeah, and I love talking about it too. Yeah. All right, well, Joe, we did it.
Joe: We had the conversation and we had ten years this almost ten years after the fact. So if you haven’t been talking about this movie, what are you doing with your life? And also you’re welcome because this is the definitive conversation on The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Greg: Absolutely. And as always, we should probably say spoilers for The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
Joe: Major spoilers.
Greg: Yeah, listener. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve listened to, will you please go into your podcast app and rate and review this podcast? If you didn’t like this episode, forget I ever said anything. Yeah, let’s move along.
Joe: Like don’t talk to us.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, you can find us at Great Bad movies.com. You can see, Patrick Hughes short film signs on the episode page for this show. You can find us on Instagram. Give us your Mount Rushmore for bad guys.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Great bad movies show. We will also be putting up some polls for you to pick what movies we cover in the future.
Joe: Yeah, but, you know, listen, this has been great.
Greg: Yeah. Really great. I’m so glad we did this.
Joe: Yeah. Me too. I am being called to The Hague to testify.
Greg: Oh, so you got to go.
Joe: I got to go.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: Apparently, the leader of Belarus killed my family in front of me, and I’m going to go testify.
Greg: So let’s see.
Joe: We’ve all seems important. Yeah, I’ve been there.
Greg: Okay, well, that got really dark really fast. Yeah.
Greg: But, you know, I’m right there with you. I don’t know if the mic has picked any of this up while we’ve been recording, but the majority of the vehicles parked on my street have exploded in the last hour and a half. That’s that’s dangerous. And so I feel like I need to get out of here. Honestly, I’m right next to a van.
Greg: Yeah, so I got to go. I got to go.
Joe: Yeah. That that tracks I’ve got to run to. I’ve got to go detail my car. Apparently it smells like ass, so.
Greg: Okay, okay, that works for me because, Lionel Richie just came on in the bar that I’m in, and that usually means that things are about to get really ugly.
Joe: Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Anyway, a busload of nuns just showed up, so, everyone better be on their best behavior right now. Is all I saying?
Greg: How much did you love that scene? I think if there is so much joy coming from Samuel Jackson, I really love that we’ll have fun, because, I’m going to go as well. I keep seeing silhouettes of Samuel Jackson, which reminds me that I have plans to get a beer with his stunt double tonight.
Joe: Oh, got that guy. Yeah, yeah. So I’m gonna go. I just, I got to go. I just, I just got a triple AA rating, so I hope nothing bad happens. So the fact that.
Greg: Yeah, I think you’re good. Yeah, well, that works for me, because I’m sure you’ve seen this all over the news in the last little while. We finally run out of Russian henchmen. And so I need to go, work with my nonprofit to create some more.
Joe: Yeah. Okay. That sounds.
Greg: Good.
Joe: You know what a funeral plan do? Sounds like. So, anyway, I’ve gotta go take a job. The company. Their motto is boring is always best. So I, hope something fun at least happens there, but sounds unlikely.
Greg: What’s the name of that company? Triple A ratings.com. Incorporated.
Joe: Incorporated. Esquire.
Greg: Amazing. Well, that works for me because. Oh my gosh, Gary Oldman himself just landed perfectly on a car outside my window. But it’s actually Gary Oldman from Air Force One. And he’s and he’s using this like super whiny voice thing. Like, I didn’t even want to be on your plane.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So I feel like I should go help him improve his attitude.
Joe: Yeah, that sounds good. I’m. I’m good. So.
Greg: Oh. You’re out.
Greg: Well, you’re out of excuses to go. And that works for me because I have to go reorganize my goods. Apparently, they’re just rattling around in the cabin like it’s amateur hour. I need to go to the artisanal gun foam store in my town.
Joe: Oh, yeah.
Greg: So I better head out.
Joe: Yeah. That’s good. That’s not important.
Greg: All right, Joe, well, this has been awesome. I will see you soon.
Joe: All right. See you soon.
Patrick Hughes’ short film Signs: