The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
‘Night School’ has comedic gifts of Hart
‘Night School’ has the comedic gifts of Hart, Haddish but isn’t really interested in applying itself
If you’re going to make a comedy from a C script, it’s a good idea to have A-quality talent like Kevin Hart.
If you’re going to make a comedy from a C script, it’s a good idea to have A-quality talent. ¶ And because “Night School” has the often-uproariously funny duo of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, it doesn’t matter all that much that its writers seemed to have taken their screenplay a little more seriously than a high school troublemaker working on homework in detention. ¶ A well-crafted story would have been nice, but megastar Hart (“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” “Central Intelligence”) and Haddish — who broke out with an absolutely hysterical performance in last year’s “Girls Trip” — don’t really need it to get “Night School” a passing grade.
The largely laugh-filled but very bloated romp has Hart portraying Teddy Walker, who, years ago, dropped out of high school after deciding his preparation for a college-entrance exam was futile, Teddy making a big spectacle in his Atlanta high school about how he wasn’t going to be one of the sheep.
Nearly two decades later, things are going pretty well for Teddy. He has a smart, successful and beautiful girlfriend, Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke, “House of Lies”), and is a top salesman at a store for barbecue equipment. Although he’s been living paycheck-topaycheck in an effort to convince Lisa he’s better off than he is, he’s about to inherit the business from his boss, an older white man who tells Teddy he considers him to be like a son. (That compliment is followed by a funny joke involving characters from 1980s comedies “Different Strokes” and “Webster.”)
But things take a bad turn for Teddy, who soon finds himself in need of a job. He can get one from a friend (Ben Schwartz of TV’s “Parks and Recreation”), but he’ll need to get his GED first, which will require him to attend night school.
He feels he needs to hide night school from Lisa, but he has bigger problems: His teacher, Haddish’s Carrie, is someone he’s already gotten into a shouting match with at a traffic light; and, worse, the principal at the school — his alma mater — is Stewart (former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Taran Killam), whom Teddy picked on back in the day.
In the class, Teddy is, of course, surrounded by a group of misfits, including slow-witted ex-jock Mackenzie (Rob Riggle, “Let’s Be Cops”); Jaylen (Romany Malco, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”), who considers himself very “woke” but is most consumed with a distrust of technology; Luis (Al Madrigal, “The Daily Show”), with whom Teddy also has had an earlier conflict; and Theresa (Lynn Rajskub, “24”), who constantly talks of being “blessed” but clearly is overwhelmed by life at home with her husband and kids.
While Teddy greatly struggles to grasp concepts such as the Pythagorean theorem — as we saw in his high school days, information tends to jump off the page and float maddeningly around his head — the rest of the class isn’t doing much better. And, so, they go along with his plans to steal the midterm from Stewart’s computer.
Despite Teddy repeatedly trying to hustle Carrie instead of putting his back into the work she’s given him, she ultimately sticks with him, giving him extra attention. Unfortunately for him, this comes largely in the form of knocking the hell out of him in the type of hexagonal ring used for mixed martial arts and screaming “focus” at him. (It’s pretty funny.)
Also unfortunately for him, Stewart is carrying a major grudge, and he sees an opportunity to use Lisa to settle the score with Teddy.
“Night School” is directed by Malcolm D. Lee of “The Best Man” franchise, as well as “Girls Trip.” He gives Hart and Haddish plenty of room in which to work, and the approach mostly pays off. However, “Night School” would have benefited from a running time closer to an hour and a half than to two hours; there is a lot of fat here.
While Lee obviously has familiarity with Haddish and gets some funny stuff from her, “Night School” is, ultimately, another showcase for Hart, its script having been penned by Hart and others, including Harry Ratchford and Joey Wells of his HartBeat Productions.
Sure, Hart’s Teddy has a bit of an arc as “Night School” takes us from Point A to Point B, but almost no other character does. (A mild exception is Stewart, whose office contains a poster for the 1989 drama “Lean on Me” — about reallife black principal who
We’re essentially left with Hart and, to a lesser degree, Haddish. And that’s just enough.
made a difference in an inner-city school — carries a bat and falls into black speak too often for a white man but who ends the affair in a better place.)
The film would have been strengthened from showing us how, over time, this group of students comes together to achieve something greater than they could have individually, but “Night School” can’t really be bothered to do more than go through some very basic motions toward that end. Even though Teddy and Luis have had this big blow-up, for example, everyone pretty much just gets along the whole time. It’s a missed opportunity.
So we’re essentially left with Hart and, to a lesser degree, Haddish. And that’s just enough, the real-life friends sharing an obvious chemistry and simply willing us to laugh, even when the moment doesn’t really deserve it.
While we may have hoped from better things from it, give “Night School” the comedy-movie equivalent of the GED. It earns at least that.