Night School: Film Review

Night School: Film Review

Cast: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Rob Riggle, Taram Killam, Megalyn Echikunwoke
Director: Malcolm D Lee

From no less than six writers, "comedy" Night School aims low and continues to mine low, before delivering an unearned sentimentally sappy ending.

Hart plays Teddy Walker, a high school dropout who's living beyond his means as a BBQ salesman, and with a girlfriend Lisa clearly above his league. When a proposal goes awry, and Walker blows up the BBQ store, he realises it's time to go back to school and secure the GED diploma he never got so that he can progress in life.

But with a headmaster nemesis from his past (Killam) and a sassy teacher (Haddish) who won't stand for any of his smooth talking and desire to sail past, Teddy has his Night School work cut out.

Night School fails on many levels, but is happy to embrace as much dumb as it can to deliver what little laughs it has

The bar's set low early on when Hart's Walker pulls out his own pubic hair at a restaurant and plants it on his food to avoid paying a hefty bill, and then it keeps just going lower.

But the broad missives aren't particularly of the highest calibre, and don't always hit the target.

While Hart and Haddish have a nice caustic rapport that inevitably softens, their banter and childish rows feel improvised enough at times to hit some of the sweeter spots needed. But there's little to build on, and scant nothing to fully develop.

There could be an outsiders' Breakfast Club to be had here, with the misfits gang in place. To be frank though, Night School's characters are less than memorable and idiotically annoying.

However, a script that piles dumb on cliched and unoriginal doesn't help much - from the usual steal the exam heist to Rob Riggle's attempt at Tom Cruise's high rise misfire, Night School's lack of anything overtly or consistently funny really makes the film drag.

There will be audiences (possibly boozed up) who will adore this, but their adoration is misplaced.

Granted, there are some laughs to be had from Walker's one-liners, but once again Hart's comedy schtick just doesn't cut it thanks to a script that's woefully weak (even with six writers). Depressingly over-long, woefully not funny enough and as painful as nails on a school chalk board, this Night School sadly flunks out, without any chance to redeem itself.

Watch it be big at the box office.