BEFORE: I watched the Emmys over the weekend, only 5 or 6 days late. But I find, as happens with the Oscars, that the shows or movies that I most enjoy are not always the ones that tend to win the awards. I realize I might have specialized tastes, because the films that score the highest on my arbitrary ratings system are superhero and sci-fi films, those bring me the most pleasure, and I do believe that we're living in the Golden Age where those are concerned. The same sort of goes for TV, like I spent the last 3 months catching up on shows like "Stranger Things", "12 Monkeys", "Cloak and Dagger", and so on. After food-based shows like "Master Chef", "Top Chef", "Iron Chef" "Worst Cooks in America" and "Chopped" (plus many others), sci-fi and superhero is probably the 2nd biggest genre of TV show that I watch. Wait, there's also late-night talk shows - but you get my point.
The only shows that I watch that managed to get Emmy nominations are: "Barry", "Stranger Things", "Twin Peaks", "Westworld", "Top Chef", "SNL", "Drunk History" and "The Amazing Race", plus 4 out of the 6 nominated for Variety Talk Series. OK, I also watched the nominated Patton Oswalt, Jerry Seinfeld and John Mullaney specials, plus the "Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert", but overall, that's not a lot of shows that I was rooting for. On the upside, I was able to speed through the three-hour show in about an hour, racing over the winners that I didn't care about.
Surprisingly, I never got into the "Game of Thrones" show, and now it almost feels like it's too late, like I'd be watching it just because it's popular and won a bunch of awards, not because the subject matter appeals to me. Same goes for "Curb Your Enthusiasm", if I didn't get on board at the start of the journey, why start now? I've got too many other things to do than play catch-up on 7 years of a show. There are shows like "Silicon Valley" and "Atlanta" that feature actors that I like, but I sort of made my decision years ago not to start too many new shows, and I've tried to hold the line on that. I'm sure they're probably great programs, but there's so much TV out there that I can only watch so much of it, and not any more.
The new fall line-ups on the major networks don't really hold much appeal for me, so it looks like it will be another year where I don't take on any new shows, just watch the same programs and cross my fingers that this is the last season of that show, which would help me out by freeing up some DVR space and some of my time. And so far "Stranger Things" is the only episodic TV I've watched on a streaming platform - sorry that I'm still so old-school about this, but if a show premieres on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon or CBS All Access, that's somebody's way of telling me they don't want me to watch it. Why else would they make it so difficult for me to see it? If I have to sign up, log in, download an app - forget it. I want TV that I can just watch when I turn my TV on, I guess that makes me an old fuddy-duddy.
Samuel L. Jackson carries over again from "Big Game".
THE PLOT: The world's top bodyguard gets a new client, a hit man who must testify at the International Criminal Court. They must put their differences aside and work together to make it to the trial on time.
AFTER: When I say that it's getting harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys, this film is a perfect example. Things seem somewhat straight-forward at the beginning - Ryan Reynolds plays a bodyguard who protects his clients, and Jackson plays a hit-man, a killer, so one's good and the other's evil, right? Ah, but it's not that simple. What happens when the good bodyguard has to protect his client from a threat? He might have to harm or kill someone in the process. And whether the hitman is good or evil depends on who he works for and who he kills, right? (or is that "whom" he kills?) If he killed bad people, would that make him good? Here he's being asked to testify against the President of Belarus, who's accused of war crimes - apparently he used to work for him. But testifying against a war criminal is a good thing, right?
We also live in a world where often it's the government that is corrupt, not just in Eastern Europe, but right here in the U.S. I did a spit-take with my morning coffee when I heard Trump addressing the U.N., accusing other world leaders of having their own financial interests at heart, instead of putting their citizens first. Oh, really? REALLY? And what would I call a President who's taking meetings with world leaders because he wants to build properties in their countries in the future? Talk about the pot calling the kettle corrupt... When a government can be dirty or sanction genocide, racism or assassinations, then all bets are off, right? Someone working against that government would either be a terrorist or a freedom fighter, depending on where you stand. Think about the French Resistance during World War II - to the Germans they were traitors, but to the Americans they were doing heroic things.
Take this a few steps further, and you get a Bond villain, or a character like Thanos. A Bond villain never thinks of himself as a villain, because everyone is the hero of their own story, even if his actions are perceived as "evil" from where we sit. This guy wants to take over a satellite with a laser to destroy a city - but does he have a valid motivation for doing that? Is the government in that city actually corrupt, like does the villain have a point? Thanos wanted to kill 1/2 of the population of the universe, because he wanted to make a point about conservation, he felt that people everywhere were using up resources much too quickly, and if this were allowed to continue, resources on any given planet would be used up, and everyone would die. The weird thing is, he's not completely wrong - if humans could get together and somehow reduce the birth rate, adopt a zero-population growth, the planet would be healthier and resources could be replenished. But no, we can't do that because God hates birth control - what a ridiculous counter-argument. So EVERYONE should die in the next 100 years because we can't figure out how to have fewer babies? Maybe if we could get over this prudish attitude, the human race could continue for another 1,000 years instead of 100, wouldn't that be ten times better? But no, that couple in Indiana needs to have 12 kids that they can't feed. Of course, Thanos took the most drastic approach and killing people at random is wrong, but the reasoning behind his actions perhaps deserves to be taken seriously.
It gets more complicated, because by spending time together, these two men come to appreciate each other for their different talents and skill-sets, plus they also have a vastly different approach to their work - one is hyper-detailed and organized, the other prefers to make things up as they go along. It's a bit corny to say that they each learn from each other, but by working together the hitman learns that sometimes having a plan can be helpful, while the bodyguard starts to see things from another perspective, and realizes that he's been very simplistic in his relationships, blaming others for things that weren't even their fault, just because things didn't go according to his plan. I think the real truth lies somewhere in the middle - it's always better to have a plan, but that plan has to be a little flexible and adapt to changes and surprises.
But there's really no time to discuss strategy or philosophy or how to apologize to a woman, because it's on to the next car chase. There are at least three big stunt scenes here, or maybe it's better to just call the whole movie one big stunt scene. The unlikely pair of heroes/not-heroes are on the run from London to Amsterdam (where the hitman's wife is conveniently imprisoned on trumped-up charges) to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is. (See, even an action movie can be educational!) But they don't explain why it's "The Hague" and not just "Hague". It's not "The London" and "The Berlin", after all, so what's up with that, Hague?
The best action sequence is probably the one set around Amsterdam's canals, when the hitman's on a speedboat in the canal, the evil BelaRussians are in cars riding alongside the canals, and the bodyguard's on a motorbike that can go just about anywhere and everywhere. This whole sequence must have taken a ton of coordination, and many Amsterdam bicycles had to be sacrificed.
They JUST announced a sequel to this film, titled "The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard", and I approve of that plan. As long as they can make them this much fun, they should keep making them this much fun. Boring is NOT always best.
Also starring Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "Deadpool 2"), Gary Oldman (last seen in "Paranoia"), Salma Hayek (last heard in "Sausage Party"), Elodie Yung (last seen in "Gods of Egypt"), Yuri Kolokolnivov, Tine Joustra, Joaquim de Almeida (last seen in "Downsizing"), Kirsty Mitchell, Richard E. Grant (last seen in "Jackie"), Georgie Glen (ditto), Sam Hazeldine (last seen in "The Huntsman: Winter's War"), Mikhail Gorevoy (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Barry Atsma, Rod Hallett, Donna Preston.
RATING: 7 out of 10 nuns in a van
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