Another Kevin Hart disaster

Film Review
Tinashe Kusema

FOR how long is Hollywood going to bombard us with these Kevin Hart disaster movies?

I know, technically speaking, it is all in jest and meant to come off as comedy, but let us do the math.

In the last decade or so, we have seen the 43-year-old get manhandled and thrown around by a pair of retired NBA players in “Think Like a Man”, almost get trampled by a crash of rhinoceros in “Jumanji”, literally get beaten up by Tiffany Haddish (“Night School”) and get thrown off a tall building by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

These are, but a few movies that quickly come to my mind and I refuse to dwell on all the meaningless short jokes that seem to accompany every script the comedian has been handed.

The latest episode of the Kevin Hart Hurt Show comes in the form of “Me Time”.

This is a feel-good comedy that will probably be remembered for its failed potential.

Hart plays Sonny Fisher, a stay-at-home dad whose life revolves around raising his two kids Dashiell (Che Tafari) and Ava (Amentii Sledge), and being the supportive husband of Maya (Regina Hall).

Approaching midlife crisis age, the highlight of Fisher’s life, he faces the task of organising his kids’ talent show and being the president of the parent-teacher association.

Enter Huck Dembo (Mark Walhberg), Fisher’s best friend and all-around man-child whose life’s ambition is to follow in the footsteps of his idol George Clooney.

For those not in the know, Clooney, once upon a time, was the world’s oldest bachelor who dated supermodels.

As Dembo approaches his 44th birthday, he decides to borrow money from a notoriously funny loan shark, Stan Berman (Jimmy O Yang), to finance a party in the wilderness with his closest friends.

Despite initially declining the offer, when his wife takes their kids to her parent’s house, Fisher finally accepts the invite and all hell breaks loose.

Let us just say houses are vandalised, friends reunited and, oh, Kevin Hart’s character fights a mountain lion and wins.

The film comes from the great mind of John Hamburg, who wrote, directed and produced it, in addition to coming into the project with a reputation of these odd pairing friendship movies.

His resume includes films like “Meet the Parents” (2000), “Zoolander” (2001), “Meet the Fockers” (2004), “I Love You, Man” (2009) and “Why Him” (2016).

The sad part about all this is that his great run of good-to-great comedies ends with ‘Me Time’.

The comedy and real laughs are too few and far between.

The film is also a by-product of some lazy writing and, most importantly, wastes what could have been a great pairing.

For all the grief I tend to hand Hart’s
body of work, which I have called one-dimensional from time to time, I do not really
give the actor enough credit for the effort he makes.

Hart literally has chemistry with everyone and anyone, and one needs not look any further than the collaborations he has made with the duo of The Rock and Ice Cube.

This guy almost fooled us into believing that Woody Harrelson actually had a funny bone in “The Man From Toronto”.

Once again, Hart puts his best foot forward with physical comedy, be it fighting a mountain lion (terrible CGI and all), giving a tortoise mouth-to-mouth or any of the litany of things he does in the name of comedy.

The duo of Mark Wahlberg and Jimmy O Yang come off as worthy co-stars, with the former showing an impressive amount of comic timing while the latter gives yet another great cameo.

In fact, these three actors are the ones who make the film bearable.

It was also great to see Tahj Mowry back on the screen again.

I am a big fan of the younger sibling of the Mowry twins, Tia and Tamara. I honestly believe the 36-year-old actor is by far the most talented thespian in that family.

Hamburg wastes too many talents (cue Regina Hall).

This is in addition to writing a film which lacks one underlying plot that ties everything together, and gives us too many lame and outdated gags.