The upside
Match made with Kevin…
Looking for positives in the Cranston/Hart team-up.
The Vanishing, Diabolique, Wicker Park, City Of Angels, The Next Three Days… American cinema overflows with lesser remakes of Euro-pics. At least Neil Burger’s (Limitless) Manhattan-set riff on 2011 French buddy dramedy The Intouchables is something different: a problematic but well-cast remake of a well-cast but problematic original.
That film – a massive international hit grossing $427m worldwide – starred François Cluzet and the César Awardwinning Omar Sy (Jurassic World, X-Men: Days Of Future Past). Here, Bryan Cranston plays wealthy quadriplegic Phil and Kevin Hart is Dell, an ex-con who becomes Phil’s ‘life auxiliary’.
Once catheter requirements are covered, bromance blooms: Phil educates Dell on opera, Dell schools Phil on Aretha Franklin… and a queasy Driving Miss Daisy dynamic emerges.
The clichés mount – Dell doesn’t know Franklin sang ‘Nessun Dorma’ while Phil is new to hot dogs (and marijuana) – yet somehow the cast keep these outsized issues from being deal-breakers. Channelling previous experience in chemistry, Cranston resists the temptation to over-compensate for Phil’s physical limitations; his warm, gravelly vocal inflections take the strain. Likewise, Hart tempers his excesses with quick, intuitive character work. This shared restraint teases out a slyly affecting tale of redemptive friendship. What’s more, the leads’ steady measure is helped by Nicole Kidman’s quiet assurance in a non-showy but pivotal support role. Kevin Harley
THE VERDICT
A remake that shares the original’s issues, but Cranston and Hart strike winning sparks.