It’s “I Love the ’80s’’ time once again at the movies, teaming Sylvester Stallone with director Walter Hill in the comic shoot-’em-up “Bullet to the Head,’’ an entertaining if nonsensical variation on Hill’s greatest hit from that bygone era, “48 Hrs.’’
That earlier landmark in the buddy action-comedy genre, you may recall, starred Nick Nolte as a grizzled detective who forms an unlikely alliance with a young ex-con (Eddie Murphy) to track down a killer.
This time, it’s a world-weary, heavily tattooed hit man nicknamed Bobo (Stallone) who improbably teams up with young Korean-American police detective Kwon (Sung Kang of “Fast Five’’) after Bobo escapes a setup in which his longtime partner (Jon Seda) is assassinated.
Straight-arrow Kwon joins forces with the revenge-seeking Bobo in hopes of uncovering a complicated plot in which corrupt politicians and developers want to bulldoze public housing projects in New Orleans and replace them with expensive condominiums.
A remarkably similar and similarly murky plot propelled last month’s unfortunate “Broken City,’’ but director Hill doesn’t take this story line — from a French graphic novel originally set in the Big Apple — any more seriously than absolutely necessary.
Instead, it’s an excuse for a high body count and for the frozen-faced Bobo to hurl comic insults — some quite funny — at his reluctant partner, whom he keeps pulling out of scrapes.
Adding to the ’80s ambiance is Christian Slater as a sleazy lawyer who gets taken for a ride by Bobo and Kwon after they conveniently crash his costume party featuring naked women.
What would also be euphemistically called the fair sex in this macho context is represented by Bobo’s daughter (Sarah Shahi), a tattoo artist whom he calls upon to remove a bullet from Kwon’s shoulder before she ends up getting kidnapped by the bad guys.
Bobo’s chief adversary is a hulking mercenary (Jason Momoa) employed by an evil, disabled African (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).
The denouement doesn’t make much sense, but then neither does the climactic ax battle between Bobo and Momoa (“What are we, Vikings?’’ asks Bobo). But it’s more fun than you’d expect.
Bobo is nothing if not old-school, and there’s a running gag about his disdain for Kwon’s reliance on his smartphone to dig up information.
Hill, who hasn’t directed a feature film in more than a decade, brings his own brand of old-school panache to all the mayhem.
Quentin Tarantino could certainly learn a thing or two from Hill about how to direct a fast-paced, quip-filled B-movie, and bring it in at just over an hour and a half.