Hart’s back-to-school comedy fails the test
Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Taran Killam, Romany Malco, Megalyn Echikunwoke. Lessons go unlearned as class never shows up AT this stage of his career, the cinematic report card of popular comedian Kevin Hart is now well-known.
He often plays nicely with others (such as Dwayne Johnston in Central Intelligence). However, leave Hart alone to carry a movie, and you could end up with something nasty (remember The Wedding Ringer?).
In the so-so-with-a-dashof-oh-no comedy Night School, Hart plays Teddy, a fast-talking, slow-thinking barbecue salesman who wants to become a financial analyst.
His primary motivation is to impress his new fiancee Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke), who Teddy believes has material expectations of her man that his current salary grade just cannot cover.
However, this vocational transition won’t be getting started unless Teddy finishes off a high school diploma he never quite completed. So our hero reluctantly trudges off to his old alma mater to rectify the oversight.
Help will come from a no- nonsense teacher Carrie ( Girls Trip breakout star Tiffany Haddish, largely wasted here), and a nonsensical gaggle of fellow students ( most notably, Mary Lynn Rajskub as an unhealthily repressed housewife, Rob Riggle as a dad with a point to prove, and Romany Malco as a nut with a lot of pointless things to say).
Hindrance will be supplied by Stewart (Taran Killam), a principal who has hated Teddy since they were classmates almost two decades ago.
In light of how hit-and-miss (mostly miss) much of the comedy component of Night School proves to be, it remains hard to fathom the running time could possibly cross the 110-minute mark.
Nevertheless, it does. Perhaps the five co-writers Hart hired to help him find some foundation for this shaky premise had something to do with the time-keeping blowout.
Yes, there are definitely a few mild laughs on offer here and there.
But there are also a heck of a lot of groaners, as can invariably occur with the kind of movie that describes a condition like dyslexia as “learning herpes.”