June 28, 2022
For her birthday this year, Teddy (Kevin Hart) was treating his wife Lori (Jasmine Matthews) to a weekend out of town. After he dropped Lori off at the spa first, Teddy drove to the cabin he booked. However, because his printer had run out of toner, the printout of the address was not clear. Teddy was unexpectedly met by men who addressed him as the Man from Toronto, and wanted him to extract information from a hostage they had tied in the basement.
Meanwhile, the real Man from Toronto (Woody Harrelson) was a hired mercenary assassin whose only love was his Dodge 68 Charger. Specializing in torture and intimidation, he was well-known for his brutality and mercilessness when extracting information from prisoners. When Toronto saw that Teddy had been mistaken for him by the FBI, he convinced Teddy to go on pretending to be him until the entire mission was completed.
Kevin Hart played Teddy Jackson as the obnoxious guy he consistently played in all his movies. His Teddy kept on trying to launch a variety of fitness fads (the latest of which was non-contact boxing) online, but nothing ever succeeded. Fed up with Teddy's incompetence, his boss at the gym Marty (Martin Roach) fired him from his day job. Teddy's name became a synonym for messing up. Hart fit this annoying role like a glove.
Based on his previous roles, we know Woody Harrelson can do brutish roles like Toronto. When he was doing that first interrogation scene with his array of deadly props, we believe it. However, when the story turned midway into a buddy comedy, Harrelson did not seem comfortable about it. There was not much chemistry between Harrelson and Hart, it was a stretch to believe that these two guys Toronto and Teddy can really be friends.
Jasmine Matthews did not have much challenge to do in the role of Lori, apart from being the supportive and forgiving wife. It's puzzling how they got TV star Kaley Cuoco of "Big Bang Theory" and "The Flight Attendant" in the cast, but inexplicably relegated her to a minor role of Lori's friend Anne. On the other hand, it was good to see 80s and 90s movie star Ellen Barkin back onscreen again as Toronto's nameless but very ruthless Handler.
Teddy was not a likable guy, so it was somehow entertaining how Teddy cluelessly went through his harrowing ordeal with hired killers, the FBI and Venezuelan despots, at the same time desperate trying to save his marriage from crumbling. However, the storytelling of director Patrick Hughes (whose most recent work was "The Hitman's Bodyguard" and its sequel) was not exactly engaging, with lame unfunny gags and over-extended fight sequences. 4/10.
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