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Night School
Kevin Hart is the executive producer, co-screenwriter and star of a 2018 comedy called Night School that does provide laughs but for a story this predictable, goes on way longer than need be.
Hart stars as Teddy Walker, an employee at a BBQ store who is dating a high-powered lady executive who accidentally burns the BBQ business to the ground and has been offered a comparable job by a friend if he can get his GED. Teddy returns to his high school and enrolls in an evening GED class with other assorted misfits and finds himself squaring off with his tough-as-nails teacher (Tiffany Haddish) and his high school nemesis (Taran Killam), who is now principal of the high school.
Hart evokes sympathy for Teddy by beginning the film with a flashback that shows why Teddy never graduated high school. It also shows him being ridiculed by his father and sister for being dumb. Hart would not have gone to the trouble of showing all of this if he had not intended for Teddy to get that GED, so why make the journey to this already foregone conclusion almost two hours long? And if the point of the story was to prove that Teddy isn't dumb, why have Teddy decide to steal the answers to the test before the halfway point in the film? And did we really need to see Teddy working at a fast food joint called Heavenly Chicken dressed like a giant chicken? Jerry Lewis did less embarrassing things on film than Hart does here.
Hart is very funny and he has assembled a solid cast to back him up, but this film just goes on a lot longer than it should have. The chase that ensues between the GED students and the principal that concludes with them trying to escape via the rooftop was just silly and really slowed the movie down. We also didn't need ten minutes of the night school students twirking at the senior prom or watching Theresa (Mary Lyn Rajskub) telling her husband what kind of sex they're going to have now that she has a GED. Seriously? And the scenes of Haddish beating Hart into learning were just dumb.
But the film did have some positive things to offer...Taran Killam was very funny as sort of a new millenium Dabney Coleman comic villain, who was a perfect comic foil for Hart. Ron Riggle was also very funny as a GED student who wants a job where he can get off his feet. There is a lot of manic physical comedy, well-staged by director Malcolm D. Lee, but the whole thing just goes on way too long.
Kevin Hart is the executive producer, co-screenwriter and star of a 2018 comedy called Night School that does provide laughs but for a story this predictable, goes on way longer than need be.
Hart stars as Teddy Walker, an employee at a BBQ store who is dating a high-powered lady executive who accidentally burns the BBQ business to the ground and has been offered a comparable job by a friend if he can get his GED. Teddy returns to his high school and enrolls in an evening GED class with other assorted misfits and finds himself squaring off with his tough-as-nails teacher (Tiffany Haddish) and his high school nemesis (Taran Killam), who is now principal of the high school.
Hart evokes sympathy for Teddy by beginning the film with a flashback that shows why Teddy never graduated high school. It also shows him being ridiculed by his father and sister for being dumb. Hart would not have gone to the trouble of showing all of this if he had not intended for Teddy to get that GED, so why make the journey to this already foregone conclusion almost two hours long? And if the point of the story was to prove that Teddy isn't dumb, why have Teddy decide to steal the answers to the test before the halfway point in the film? And did we really need to see Teddy working at a fast food joint called Heavenly Chicken dressed like a giant chicken? Jerry Lewis did less embarrassing things on film than Hart does here.
Hart is very funny and he has assembled a solid cast to back him up, but this film just goes on a lot longer than it should have. The chase that ensues between the GED students and the principal that concludes with them trying to escape via the rooftop was just silly and really slowed the movie down. We also didn't need ten minutes of the night school students twirking at the senior prom or watching Theresa (Mary Lyn Rajskub) telling her husband what kind of sex they're going to have now that she has a GED. Seriously? And the scenes of Haddish beating Hart into learning were just dumb.
But the film did have some positive things to offer...Taran Killam was very funny as sort of a new millenium Dabney Coleman comic villain, who was a perfect comic foil for Hart. Ron Riggle was also very funny as a GED student who wants a job where he can get off his feet. There is a lot of manic physical comedy, well-staged by director Malcolm D. Lee, but the whole thing just goes on way too long.