Brief Story Line
Teddy Jackson (Kevin Hart - The Secret Life of Pets 2, Jumanji: The Next Level etc) was just a regular man who had been trying to sell his not-working inventions online for years with no success. On the birthday of his wife Lori (Jasmine Matthews), Teddy wanted to give a weekend getaway present at a secluded romantic place. However, he somehow went to the wrong address and was assumed as a notorious hitman called the Man from Toronto.
Due to some reasons, Teddy was forced to cooperate with Randy, the actual Man from Toronto (Woody Harrelson - Zombieland: Double Tap, Kate etc) while Lori enjoying her time together with her old friend Annie (Kaley Cuoco - The Flight Attendant TV series, Why Him? etc).
So what would happen to Teddy and how would the story conclude? Find them all in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This kind of movie would rely heavily on the comedy arising from mistaken identity of two completely different characters. While one was pictured as a complete screw-up who could not get anything right (but somehow had a nice & understanding wife), the other was a ruthless and no nonsense professional killer. When shown separately, these two were actually quite OK. However once they were combined, I am not sure why but I could not really get their chemistry and it did not seem too convincing when they become "friends".
Kevin Hart showed his usual strength of making us laugh or at least chuckled every now and then just by his looks/expressions and obviously his mouth. Woody Harrelson looked cool enough when he was interrogating people. His fight scenes were actually pretty good and amazing, though somehow I could not picture him to be the real person doing those scenes. Some of the action sequence were exciting (the one in the airplane was quite enjoyable), but the highlight for me was definitely the final fight. It somehow gave strong video game vibe where the camera seemed to be hold by the people positioned near them. It felt like we were together with them during the fights. And even if it might looked cartoonish, but it was still fun to see.
Aside from Hart and Harrelson, there were also other support cast like Ellen Barkin (Switch, Animal Kingdom TV series etc) as Randy's handler, singer Jencarlos Canela as FBI agent Santoro, Pierson Fodé (The Bold and the Beautiful TV series etc), and even minor role by Japanese well known star Tomohisa Yamashita (The Head mini series etc). What was a bit disappointing was the unused talent of Kaley Cuoco which I believed was because of how her character was written. Btw, the movie was directed by Patrick Hughes whose few of his previous works were also action comedy such as The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard and its prequel. Oh, during the closing credit, there was some brief scene that you can watch, but no post end credit scene.
Overall to me this action comedy was not as entertaining as I would have hoped for which was too bad considering it had two experienced lead stars. There were few scenes that managed to give me laughs and the action were pretty awesome too. However, it did not truly satisfy me as whole movie, particularly due to the not so convincing chemistry between the two lead characters. From what I see, critics were unkind with the movie too with its low rating, though audience seemed to better receive it. So if you are interested in action comedy with some nicely crafted action, then you can give this a try. As long as you do not expect this to be a high quality one, likely you would be able to enjoy it. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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