"Man from Toronto" a very passable airplane movie

The Man from Toronto (2022)

A mismatched buddy action-comedy doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Responsible for the forgettable, down-the-middle programmer “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” and its clumsily titled, tossed-off sequel “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,” director Patrick Hughes aims to keep making the same kind of movie until we get sick and tired of it. This go-round, it’s “The Man from Toronto,” which slams together motor-mouthed Kevin Hart and mean-mugging Woody Harrelson. The two stars keep the proceedings as alive as they can with some crazy energy here and there, and there are a few solidly staged action set-pieces scattered about, but it’s all never as funny as it could be. As it has become Netflix's specialty with an influx of weekly content, this is the kind of time-waster destined for half-watching.

Kevin Hart is mostly playing a familiar variation of other good-hearted idiot-underdog movie roles. This time, he’s named Teddy Jackson (the second “Teddy” Hart has played), a no-contact boxing/gym equipment salesman who’s known for being such a screw-up that his friends and patient wife Lori (Jasmine Mathews) have coined “Teddying” as a verb. With his wife’s birthday approaching, Teddy actually makes plans this year, reserving a cabin for them in Onancock, Virginia. First dropping Lori off at the spa, Teddy plans to unload their luggage at the cabin. But you’ll never guess what happens next in a classic (or dumb) case of mistaken identity. He doesn’t know what the actual cabin he booked even looks like, so Teddy goes by his low-tone printout with the address and goes to the wrong cabin. There, he’s mistaken for being an assassin ready to brutally finish off a man held captive in the basement in front of two built bodyguards. 

The joke soon becomes Teddy posing as the threatening “Man from Toronto,” who’s known for his effectively torturous methods of questioning and even infamously “filleted an entire poker parlor in Minnesota.” After an FBI raid, Teddy is convinced to impersonate this mysterious hitman once more to help foil an exiled Venezuelan colonel’s plans, until the real “Man from Toronto” (played with steely-eyed menace by Woody Harrelson) shows up. Of course, both he and Teddy partner up, only to get entangled in a larger conspiracy. Really, Toronto is just a frustrated chef trying to save up enough to open his own restaurant, and Teddy wants to just celebrate his wife’s birthday in peace. Beyond the amusing mismatched-buddy scenario, the plot itself has a lot of moving parts, including a severed thumb, an assassination involving the Venezuelan president, and Toronto’s decades-long handler (Ellen Barkin, literally phoning it in but at least getting to angrily fire a grenade launcher).

Of all the comic foils in all the land, Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson are perfectly mismatched together, but Hart’s one-on-one chemistry with Dwayne Johnson in “Central Intelligence” still has yet to be topped. Poor Jasmine Mathews gets to be The Wife without much to do at all, and though faintly less misused than she was in her last comedy with Kevin Hart (2015’s “The Wedding Ringer”), Kaley Cuoco tries making the most of a very thankless role as Lori’s loud, ready-to-mingle gal pal. Handsome, sharply dressed, and physically agile with a golf club, Pierson Fode at least makes an impression as rival assassin “The Man from Miami.”

The script by Robbie Fox (2012’s “Playing for Keeps”) and Chris Bremner (2020’s “Bad Boys for Life”) is just rather perfunctory, and director Hughes lets a lowbrow vomit gag go on way past its payoff. A throwaway joke involving non-binary pronouns also feels very wedged in for relevance's sake. Though a lot is put on the shoulders of the two stars’ dynamic, Hughes manages to have a better handle on the action than the comedy. In particular, there’s a nonstop, frenetically violent showdown in a boxing gym between Teddy and Toronto versus a bunch of other “Men from,” and it’s mostly shot in one long take (or that’s the impressive illusion). As a threadbare, uninspiring action-comedy, “The Man from Toronto” is passable for an in-flight distraction before a much more desirable destination.

Grade: C

Netflix released “The Man from Toronto” (110 min.) to stream on June 24, 2022.