72 Hours | Kevin Hart | Official Trailer | Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finding beneficial returns in a Netflix comedy is like seeking a singular needle in a continent sized haystack, but even despite the movie’s overly derivative familiarity and lack of compelling creativity, there are a couple of sporadic instances where the humorous material finds a comfortable rhythm to at least entertain a vested audience, particularly a couple of noteworthy sequences in which Hart’s cocaine-ingested character becomes a Cuban drug kingpin named Ricardo Montana. The most meaningful among them is easily fight set piece with a once rivalrous comedian to Hart, aboard a luxurious yacht, and while the humor is still relegated to minimal increments throughout interactions where the two bounce rivetingly off of one another, the commitment physically to bring this sequence to life easily makes it the most memorable of the movie’s entirety, and one whose temporary team-up leaves me wishing for what might’ve been had the film centered around these two actors, instead of being just another raunchy bromance involving unrealized potential. Likewise, while the performances are admittedly a mixed bag, as a result of mediocre material that isn’t clever nor consistent enough to flourish results, the best among them is easily Mason Gooding, whose authentic chemistry alongside Hart in the cellar of this crudely obnoxious group dynamic inscribes an unforeseen hearty underlining that at least attempts some emotional range to balance the mostly one-dimensionality that grows tedious as quickly as the movie’s opening act. As the film transitions into its second hour, the script surprisingly uncorks a refreshing honesty and commonality between these characters that finally fleshes them out beyond singularized outlines, allowing them to bridge the gap within their expansive age by tapping into the tediousness of the live fast lifestyle, and though Gooding is essentially sharing the screen amongst an ensemble that play second fiddle to Hart’s reheated schtick, the periodic protrusions towards the movie’s focus allows him to shine with some much-needed maturity and sincerity, cementing him easily as the highlight in a comedy where he’s surrounded by fresh-faced comedians aplenty. Lastly, while much of the filmmaking behind Story’s guiding hand lacks captivating ambition, I do think that the established South Beach setting and corresponding editing techniques offer an immersive guidance into the lavishes of the captured lifestyle, where so much of the movie’s minimized budget was clearly spent in the fringe specifics that attain believability in the level that this group of friends are playing with, specifically luxurious mansions, fast cars, and aforementioned on-the-water production aboard an expensive yacht. Once the storytelling evolves to Miami, after some greenscreen-heavy visuals corrupting much of the movie’s initial character introductions, it finds more of a seamless symmetry among the intricate backdrops of the exotic southeast, bringing the story to life with atmospheric renderings that makes the setting feel like a conflictual character of its own in the movie, but beyond that a palpable enjoyment factor between the ensemble that opted to make their work feel like an all expenses paid vacation to one of the country’s most exotically entrancing settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another week of straight-to-streaming releases brings another lackluster addition to Netflix’s increasingly agitating library of humorless drivel, this time while unforgivably wasting such a talented ensemble of Saturday Night Live heavyweights with gross-out gags and juvenile material that made me feel as old and unrelatable to the current generation as any film in recent memory. The problem isn’t necessarily that the deliveries land with such an abrasively unregistering clunk that fails to jolt even an accidental influence over the integrity of the product, but that the gags themselves are so unknowingly telegraphed from miles away that they make the audience feel like they’re ten steps ahead of the characters at all times, opting for disgusting over delightful in the most exaggeratedly unrealistic means conceivable, without any kind of even remote momentum that corresponds into keeping this 93 minute engagement from feeling twice its length, as a result of plunging pacing. For my money, so many of these scenes and sequences drown on relentlessly for far too long, specifically those involving an unforeseen celebrity cameo that feels stretched to justify the paycheck of their single day incorporation onto the set, but even in the desperation of the dialogue, the conversations between these characters feels distinctly like a group of sixty-something producers on the outside combining their knowledge of fresh lingo and outdated references to improv on the visuals, and while results will obviously vary in those who admire Hart’s quick-talking observational humor, it feels just as stagnantly stale as it did ten years ago, depriving the audience of his or the collective ensemble’s radiant charisma, which could’ve at least tricked the material into feeling endearingly innovative. This aforementioned transparency is also part of the problem with the script as a whole, as the clunky plot mechanics from scene to scene not only deliberately spell out a telegraphed transparency that makes their reincorporation to the conflicts later in the film feel crucially inevitable, but also overwhelms the engagement with illogical motivations from the characters that doubles down on the modern day cliche of making rich and powerful characters feel as ignorantly obtuse as humanly incapable. It goes without saying that you don’t watch a Kevin Hart movie for leaping logic, but even in the established rules that the movie paints so forcefully for itself and its environment, there are still bountifully glaring instances of continuity errors, conveniences, and contrivances that make it difficult to ever meet it at eye level, especially considering creative originality never makes the trip to be among this overly familiar outline. If most comedies of the contemporary age can be deduced to essentially feeling like a hybrid of any two films before it, 72 Hours undoubtedly feels like a clashing of The Hangover and Never Been Kissed, with so many obviously on-the-nose instances of similarities that I’m surprised that Tim Story and Kevin Hart weren’t sued for borrowing so nonchalantly from the plot devices and framing of better movies before theirs. While the idea of a group of friends jetting away to an exotic location for a bachelor party can certainly be considered for a litany of movies, the undebatable inclusions of the groom being kidnapped by drug lords, or waking up in an unfamiliar place after being roofied, leave little doubt in the lack of inspiration that the film enacts for itself, and when you combine this with an older and out-of-touch protagonist seeking business opportunities by experiencing the youth in their natural habitat, the prominent instances start to overwhelm so much of the attempt of approaching this film so individually, without anything substantially stimulating to add to the borrowing. Finally, despite my previous experience with Story’s films being a mixed bag ranging anywhere from the comfortable camaraderie of Barbershop, to the depraved depths of Tom & Jerry, the one commonality that so many of this inferior additions share among them is this spontaneous intrusion for unrealized creative directions that have the film beginning as one thing before evolving into another, such as here where this budding bromantic comedy of sorts expands into an action thriller of sorts, the likes of which does little to justify its existence to this particular story. I express this feeling because the subplot involving these antagonists come completely out of left field at a time when they hold no bearing to what’s being explored with our protagonists, and even when Story’s direction does balance them accordingly, the film is subjected to various tonal clashes that go from one scene involving them evading capture on board a dark and desolate ship, to them surviving to shore by grabbing ahold of whale penises (I’m not kidding), leaving it difficult to accurately assess anywhere throughout the film just what kind of arms reach emotion that I should feel, during scenes that aren’t effectively helmed in with the kind of convictive approach that irons out these frivolously opportunistic indulgences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
72 Hours is a raunchily formulaic debauchery comedy that is not only void of any genuine laughs among a dream team of comedic heavyweights, but also a lazily lackluster exploration about generation-gap camaraderie that belongs submerged in Netflix’s limitless murky depths of team-up comedies that sunk as quickly as they hit the water. While Tim Story occasionally elicits some necessary heart among the humiliating consistency of the humor’s ineffectiveness, his clumsily obvious sampling towards better movies and expanding genres leaves the film void of feeling comfortable in its own skin, with a hodgepodge of telegraphed gags and character arcs that leave the title feel like it’s playing out in real time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 3.1 or F<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By Tim Story Starring – Kevin Hart, Teyana Taylor, Mason Gooding The Plot – A 40-year-old executive (Hart) ends up at a three-day bachelor party with twenty-somethings after being mistakenly included in their chat group. Rated R for pervasive language, sexual material, drug use and graphic nudity. 72 Hours | Kevin Hart | Official […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,4,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9788"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9790,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9788\/revisions\/9790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}