I have never been to night school as I completed high school successfully. However, I had some a bit of a mixed expectation going into this because it looked like some sort of routine comedy that may not hit me. But, also, on the positive side, there were the talents of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, who were coming off of hit movies with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Girls Trip, respectively, uniting for the first time with this movie. There is comic spirit and talent surrounding the leads and the supporting cast especially during in night school, but outside the school, the movie relies on a contrived plot with tiring slapstick and overbearing sentimentality that I felt let down.
Teddy Walker (Kevin Hart) works as a barbecue grill salesman while dating a wealthy woman named Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke). He has a financial strategy under his belt of appearing better in that department than he actually is. Later, after proposing to Lisa, Teddy pops the champagne cork causing an explosion in the gas tank, destroying the store. The manager runs away with the insurance money.
Now unemployed, an investment advisor named Marvin (Ben Schwartz) tells Teddy that he could get a job at his firm but he has to get a GED because he did not complete a test back in high school, forcing himself to drop out. Teddy goes back to his old high school to try to get a pass but the new principal turns out to be Stewart (Taran Killam), who Teddy used to bully in high school. Fortunately, Teddy gets into night school which taught by the avant-garde Carrie (Tiffany Haddish), but he is still displeased because of his lack of concentration.
I felt bad for not liking this movie because the filmmakers and the six writers had a winning formula with Hart and Haddish and a solid supporting cast in their hands. They dropped the ball with the contrivances and the cliches that de-railed the movie. It relies heavily on jokes associating with slapstick or making fun of someone's disabilities that both Haddish and Hart had to riffraff dialogue to increase the energy level but it was uncomfortable to conceive.
The movie is on a sit-com level but the stars are not but I cannot give a pass because the talent carries the movie like firemen carrying a big water hose. The best scenes are when Hart and Haddish exchange dialogue, you can tell that they are improvising in most scenes. But, the biggest distraction is the audio dubbing as you can tell that the studio wanted to make it PG-13 instead of R. The movie could have potentially become better as an R-rated film. The scenes in the classroom are solid as Rob Riggle gives a funny performance once again, Romany Malco is underused but he is once again hilarious along with Mary Lynn Rajskub, Anne Winters and Fat Joe. Yeah?!? Fat Joe.
Director Malcolm D. Lee also made Girls Trip with Haddish but retreats back to the level of underwhelming comedy level but not detestable comedy level such as Undercover Brother or Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. I mean, they had a very solid execution, went to a mixed middle portion of the movie, mixing in good jokes, good improvisation but also lazy writing. But, the third act is when the movie crosses into auto-pilot mode when the forced sentimentality kicks in and you would know what would happen even if the disability level is a fresh angle for the plot. They had the actors but they what they had was half a movie and half a script. So, it's basically a C from me which is not exactly promising but Malcolm D. Lee can re-bound from this effort.
**
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