Review: Night School
Night School is a bit of a disappointment, considering the combined comic forces of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. It's not that the film is devoid of funny moments, it's more that the moments generate a steady stream of chuckles rather than outright guffaws. Granted, it would be difficult to show off the leading duo's talents to maximum effect, but the screenplay by Hart and five (!!!) other screenwriters seems perfectly content to rely on the cliched and derivative, often leaving Hart, Haddish and their supporting cast adrift.
Hart plays Teddy Walker, a high school dropout living well beyond his means and dating a woman named Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke) way out of his league. A BBQ grill salesman, he's managed to maintain an illusion of relative success because he believes that the wealthy Lisa wouldn't be with him otherwise. His already wobbly house of cards takes a hit when, after accidentally triggering a gas explosion at his workplace after proposing to Lisa, he finds himself jobless when the owner decides to take the insurance money and up sticks to Florida. Rather than confess the truth of his situation to Lisa, he pretends that he's gotten a new job at the finance firm in which his childhood friend Marvin (Ben Schwartz) works. The only way Teddy can turn this fiction into a fact is to get his GED.
Easy enough, Teddy believes, he can just charm the principal of his old high school. Except the principal turns out to be Stewart (Taran Killam), whom Teddy used to bully back in high school. Plus, Teddy has to contend with the discouraging realisation that his powers of concentration are just as faulty as they ever were and that he's stuck in a class full of misfits who are, in their own ways, just as screwed up as he is. The point of the whole film, of course, is the funnily fractious interplay between Teddy and his teacher Carrie (Haddish), who is not about to suffer this particular fool gladly.
Indeed, Night School is at its most satisfying when it focuses on the insult-laden dynamic between Hart and Haddish. Their barbed exchanges feel the most spontaneous rather than written by committee. It's too bad that the rest of the film feels lazy and inconsequential. Reliable supporting players like Rob Riggle and Mary Lynn Rajskub especially do what they can to enliven barely sketched characters and the results of their efforts are reasonable, the same of which can be said of Night School in general.
Night School
Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee
Written by: Kevin Hart, Harry Ratchford, Joey Wells, Matthew Kellard, Nicholas Stoller, John Hamburg
Starring: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Rob Riggle, Taran Killam, Romany Malco, Keith David, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Ben Schwartz, Megalyn Echikunwoke
