Movie Review – Man From Toronto, The (2022)
Principal Cast : Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, Jasmine Matthews, Kaley Cuoco, Kate Drummond, Ronnie Rowe, Alejandro de Hoyos, Lela Loren, Ellen Barkin, Pierson Rode, Tomohisa Yamashita, Oleg Taktarov, Jencaralos Canela.
Synopsis: The world’s deadliest assassin and New York’s biggest screw-up are mistaken for each other at an Airbnb rental.
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Conceived as a vehicle for Kevin Hart and Jason Statham, Netflix’ “knockabout action comedy” The Man From Toronto is a diversionary waste of time scarcely coherent as a motion picture. Patrick Hughes’ film is a tepid, largely unfunny caper in which Hart, together with last-minute Statham replacement Woody Harrelson, play anti-buddies in this asinine romp that wastes yet more of Netflix’ money in projects that seemed like a sure thing but never quite emerge with similar plaudits. While The Man From Toronto isn’t the worst film I’ve seen in a while, it’s an enormous missed opportunity for comedic gold, with Hart’s jabbering imbecile character whiffing the laughs and Harrelson looking decidedly bored through the whole thing; it’s fair that they both have amenable screen chemistry but this film wastes them with a godawful screenplay and dire, inconsequential plotting.
Teddy Jackson (Hart) is a struggling fitness entrepreneur in Yorktown, Virginia, who is fired from his job at a local gym for giving ad brochures without the gym’s address. He decides not to tell his wife Lori (Jasmine Matthews) and takes her to Onancock for her birthday. Leaving her at a day-spa, Teddy arrives at the wrong cabin, where a man is being held hostage and tortured into revealing information relating to some mysterious code. Mistaken for “The Man from Toronto”, a mysterious assassin (Woody Harrelson) with a talent for brutal interrogation, the clueless Teddy manages to intimidate the victim into giving up the code. The cabin is raided by the FBI, who convinces Teddy to pose as the Man from Toronto to help capture would-be Venezuelan dictator Colonel Marin in exchange for the FBI paying off his overdue mortgage. It is only after the real Man From Toronto arrives to “help” Teddy accomplish his mission that Teddy’s real problems start to arise.
A running gag about printer toner, execrable dialogue and situational comedy, and cartoonishly dumb secondary ensemble characters (and I include Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco in this miasma) make The Man From Toronto a complete misfire. For me, a little bit of Kevin Hart goes a long way, his wide-eyed and often wild-eyed performance style rarely clicking for me when he goes solo but seemingly effortlessly hilarious when paired up with Dwayne Johnson for their various projects. Sadly, Johnson isn’t here, and his presence is missed, given replacement co-star and resident straight man in Woody Harrelson can’t make the dynamic between stoic, silent killer and Hart’s blithering idiot work. Harrelson makes a mere passing grade seem laudable as he succumbs to the stupidest, laziest screenplay clichés known to man with this facile, juvenile plot. Hart springboards into this film with enthusiasm but he’s hardly ever restrained, delivering his nonsensically imbecilic character into a variety of situations that defy logic, all with the ranting and riffing style of an early-career Eddie Murphy, only without the fun. By about half way through this mess, I wanted one of the bad guys to just shoot Hart’s character in the face, I needed him to shut up so badly. Unfortunately, your mileage with Hart’s continued overacting and attempts to rubber-face his way through this “comedy” role will vary – for me, both he and Harrelson’s inconsequential take on the world’s least effective bad guy are near unwatchable.
Director Patrick Hughes isn’t entirely to blame here. I mean, he is, but the film’s reported $75m budget looks to have been spent on perhaps catering? Despite solid production values the film’s visual effects creak and groan under the weight of having to expand what feels like a fairly limiting screenplay, despite the transcontinental settings and backdrops; there’s only so much green-screen one can handle before it all becomes too obvious, and although the frantic nature of the plot and Hart’s jabbering performance might ensure the casual viewer doesn’t look too closely at the seams of this thing, established film fans will find it a frustratingly low-fi affair, with a lot of “cheats” in telling this story that belie the substantial budget afforded the film. The film screeches along blithely unaware of its own shortcomings, and although Harrelson and the rest gamely give it their all, the stunning cinematography (from Rob Hardy) and superb action editing (by Craig Alpert) can’t overcome a feeling of cheapness underpinning some of the more outlandish narrative leaps the viewer is expected to make. I guess on some superficial level most people won’t care, particularly given the film’s outlandish tone, but it’s a real shame the film feels to thin with regards to its sense of scale and epic-ness.
The Man From Toronto is a time-waster that’ll appeal to die-hard fans of Kevin hart and few others. Patrick Hughes, who gave us a commendable Expendables 3, and the Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard franchise, continues to mine middle-budget films in his uneven career to date, and while this film’s scattered tone and Hart’s dullard-does-good routine is grating more than it is compelling, I guess there’s something approaching entertainment value if these kinds of things are your kind of thing. For me, however, I found the film’s gradually uninvolving tedium and abyssal leaps in logic and character too big a stretch to enjoy. While Harrelson is always worth a second look in one-dimensional villain roles like this, everything else simply doesn’t work.
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