Vicky Sparks
Sometimes a movie is so unfunny you think, “Gee, I wish I had counted how many times I actually laughed.” Sometimes you don’t need to count because you laughed twice in 111 minutes.
Sadly, Night School falls in that category.
It’s freakish that you could put Tiffany Haddish and Kevin Hart together in a film and end up with something this unfunny. I’m genuinely shocked. Just listening to the two of them chat for 111 minutes would be funnier than this film, which took six men to write.
Where did it all go wrong?
Hart plays Teddy, a man who never excelled academically but had a certain charm and persuasion that lent itself well to sales. So, despite never having graduated high school he’s doing OK as the best barbecue salesman to ever exist.
When his place of business goes up in flames in a ridiculous accident he’s out of a job. Desperate to get back on top, he goes to night school to get his GED.
There he meets Haddish, who plays a no-nonsense teacher named Carrie, and a band of misfit toys also trying to complete their education.
He keeps all of this a secret from his beautiful fiancé who has no real understanding of his financial or life situation. The rest of the plot is exactly what you’d guess – the fiancé finds out and is angry about the deception. They break up, he graduates, and she shows up at the ceremony – all is well again.
Why that basic plot we’ve seen in 100 incarnations over the years took six screenwriters, I will never understand.
I’m not 100% certain what broke this movie. Was it asking Haddish to play the straight woman to Hart’s ridiculous antics (a COLOSSAL waste of her talents)? The basically boring plot, or a script written by committee?
What I do know is that somewhere along the way it veers way off course.
Hart and Haddish have been real-life friends for almost 20 years, which makes it all the more surprising they have absolutely no chemistry (I don’t mean romantically – Haddish’s character is gay).
Both of them are exceptionally gifted comedians, but somehow with their casting, two rights made a wrong, and that’s math that even Night School can’t explain.
Vicky Sparks is a Bright’s Grove native and movie critic for Global TV’s The Morning Show, which airs nationally on Fridays. Her Journal Reviews cover movies playing at Galaxy Cinemas Sarnia