WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, streaming now on HBO Max. 

Darius Kincaid, the hitman from the original movie, returns in The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard and his wife Sonia, through a comic misunderstanding, recruits Michael Bryce, the bodyguard in question, to help rescue her husband from a band of kidnappers who are associated with her former lover and current film antagonist, Aristotle Papdopolous.

Tongue in cheek doesn't go far enough to describe the flippant tone of the movie. Despite the high level action sequences the entire enterprise is deeply rooted in caricature. Every moment strings along pulling at the plausible in favor of the outrageous, but one relationship between a father and his son snaps the facade and shreds the wafer thin pretense of the movie's human connections with its sharp edges.

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After a variety of self inflicted setbacks Bryce, Sonia and Darius wind up on the doorstep of Bryce's namesake, his father Michael Bryce Sr. It quickly becomes evident that the younger Bryce is beholden to the elder in more ways than the name he was given. Senior is also a legendary bodyguard who has never felt that his son has stepped out of the long shadow cast from his decades of valorous exploits. Eschewing kevlar and mocking his son's signature weapon, Bryce the elder seemed to have very little faith in his son's abilities or in the prospect that he might regain his official AAA license to guard bodies at some point in the future.

Appearing supportive and helpful, Senior outfits the carnal couple and his son with some elite transportation, some glad-handing with Interpol on their behalf, securing a safe house and arranging the removal of an explosive bracelet that Sonia has been forced to accessorize with after an earlier botched mission. He even huddles up with his son to give him a pep talk about becoming a hero, rising from the ashes of his failures and all with the promise that he will be there when it is all over to pat him on the back with long awaited attaboys and emotionally appropriate desserts that don't run headlong into his tragic origin story. The elder even suggests that his clout with the bodyguard licensing review board will ensure that the exiled son will receive a fair hearing when all of the dust settles.

Not only was it all a lie, it was done with the express purpose of lowering their collective guard so that Senior's employer, the aforementioned final boss Aristotle Papdopolous, could get the drop on them. Every kind act perpetrated by Senior now seems suspect. A gelato incident was not an accident, but a careful manipulation of his son's vulnerabilities. The phone call he made as they get ready to depart wasn't greasing diplomatic wheels to get some of their pursuers to back off, it was more likely a get the bathtub ready type of preemptive betrayal ala Training Day. However the movie goes a lot further than a simple conflict of interest. The trio is plied with tranquilizer darts, boated to a super yacht, hooded and hogtied before Darius and Bryce manage an escape.

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It could have gone the route of a duty sworn agent who has spent years in the field honing his craft wrestling with conflict over the choices he must now make between his calling and his child. It could also have rested on the trope of a double cross wherein Papdopolous had previously promised younger Bryce's safety in exchange for elder's facilitation. There was a road not taken paved with good intentions gone awry but instead the movie chose violence, explicit emotional and physical violence, wherein Senior was entirely comfortable with not only the death of his son, but killing him with his bare hands.

Just so that the motivations are crystal clear, the movie provides a prelude to the impending potential filicide with a scene where Bryce goes back to his father's after escaping Papdoplous' clutches. Words like pantywaist and moron are bandied about while Senior describes his son an irrelevant disgrace and deigns to even respect him enough to consider his freedom as a threat to his client's goals. It turns out that Senior did call the review board, but to make sure that Bryce would be given a lifetime ban.  As the final battle ensues and each is conveniently paired off against their diametric counterpart, Senior glibly tries to murder his son, quipping all the while.

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Even in the midst of farce, the tone of it is jarring. Bryce is trying to reconcile what is happening with his own understanding of the perceptions he had always harbored about his father. Propaganda and reality collide painfully with each elbow, kick and crunch of cartilage. Finally Bryce buries his penknife in his father's carotid and the younger leaves the elder to an explosive fate as the yacht's debris burns on the water. The movie's denouement is fulfilled by the incredulous but somehow expected adoption papers prepared by Sonia that Bryce unwittingly signs, replacing the father he lost with the barren fugitives he despises.

Cersei was a calculating and selfish character who was redeemable only in the love she displayed for her three doomed children. Thanos sacrificed his daughter so that he might attain the power to "fix" the universe, and he mourned her death as he made his choice. Without capturing this incredible cruelty on screen the end goal of uniting the three characters into a family would have landed differently. It is meant to be regarded as mutually beneficial for all parties even though it is clearly less than ideal. That becomes much more difficult to accomplish is Senior is held in high esteem or the beneficiary of any residual sympathy. The tone of the movie is so over the top that none of it is meant to kindle a genuine emotional response, unless laughter or vicarious embarrassment counts. However outdoing the Mad Titan and the Queen Regent of Westeros is quite the feat and despite its attempt to avoid any authentic empathy, attempting to kill your kid remains as off putting as it sounds.

To see Morgan Freeman renounce all paternal rights, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is streaming now on HBO Max. 

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