Delivered
Woody Harrelson and Kevin Hart join forces for The Man From Toronto.
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The Man From Toronto (13+, 112 mins) Directed by Patrick Hughes**
Originally set to team Kevin Hart with Jason Statham, the production of this action comedy was apparently thrown into chaos as the final six weeks moved away from filming.
The former Commonwealth Games reportedly had a disagreement with the producers over the film’s tone and rating. And this was the man who starred in such “tasteful fare” as Crank: High Voltage and critical disasters like In the Name of the King.
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Now, following Covid delays and a decision to evade a theatrical release, Patrick Hughes’ latest pyrotechnic and violent comedy from The Hitman’s Bodyguard Patrick Hughes has finally arrived, with fellow folly-challenged Woody Harrelson taking the place of Statham. .
Despite having Natural Born Killers and Seven Psychopaths on his resume, the man who started his career as a bartender at Cheers doesn’t exactly look like the hit man of the same name from the Ontario capital. While his character clearly has an Anton Chigurh-esque reputation and a penchant for storytelling, Harrelson just isn’t in the same league as his terrifying No Country For Old Men co-star Javier Bardem.
On a premise that will remind viewers of a certain vintage of 2000’s conceit somehow coined to recreate Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis – The Whole Nine Yards – and the series of similarly themed homages/rip-offs that followed them. followed, The Man From Toronto follows the fortunes of aspiring fitness entrepreneur Teddy Jackson (Hart) from Virginia.
NETFLIX
The Man From Toronto is now streaming on Netflix.
His chaotic online video promotions for ill-fated products like TeddyBands, TeddyBurn, and the TeddyBar have seen his name become a verb synonymous with screwing up around town, while he owes the IRS, two credit card companies and his cousin Carl.
Desperate to impress his long-suffering wife Lori (Jasmine Mathews), Teddy has organized a birthday weekend at a cabin in picturesque Onancock. There’s only one problem — aside from the fact that he just lost his job at Marty’s Fitness after his contactless boxing talk turned into a wider discussion about Teddy’s latest failed company-wide marketing campaign — if he forgets to replace his printer toner, he’ll have to guess. the address of their retreat.
A two-hour spa session gives him some time, but unfortunately, instead of quiet seclusion, he stumbles into the middle of a torture situation, where he’s supposed to extract the information. While he manages to work his way to the desired outcome, he cannot avoid the arrival of the FBI or the attention of the man he accidentally replaced.
While Teddy is questioned by the authorities and mentioned for their own purposes, “The Man From Toronto” begins to investigate the interlocutor who has seemingly robbed him of a lucrative payday. “It takes a real professional to make things look so amateurish,” he confides to his handler.
Delivered
The Man From Toronto is a film that almost criminally wastes the talented Jasmine Mathews and Kaley Cuoco.
What follows is a lively, action-packed, yet ploddingly predictable set of multi-location set pieces that will offer few surprises to anyone familiar with the genre (there’s even a scene featuring an overly elaborate art installation straight from recent Sony production peers). Uncharted) or Hughes’ Hitman’s Bodyguard series.
Our central pair bicker and bond, as they get themselves in and out of countless scratches with one-dimensional villains.
While Hughes occasionally impresses with the fight choreography and inventiveness (Wolfmother’s big showdown is a real standout), he’s let down by a scattershot script that, as Statham seemingly pointed out, really looks like it was a patchwork of the combined ghosts behind Bad Boys For Life, Bio-Dome and so I married an ax killer.
Likewise, though Harrelson and Hart spark sporadically, any real heat feels forced. A movie that nearly wastes The Rookie’s Mathews and, criminally, Kaley Cuoco, this really feels like a bad facsimile of the popular ’90s action comedies like Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys – complete with bravado-driven dudes who are supposedly afraid of their wives and girlfriends (but are completely insensitive to their needs and feelings) more than the bad guys.
As Teddy says more than once, this is definitely “a low toner situation”.
The Man From Toronto is now available on Netflix.