3 Short Paragraphs: The Man from Toronto

2022, Patrick Hughes (The Hitman's Bodyguard) -- Netflix

Ohhhh, he directed THAT movie. That explains the tone and temperament and choice of a lead actor. Also, the fact that it started its life at the beginning of 2020 and arrived on Netflix mid-2022 says something about it -- this is a purple suit (Netflix = red suit, maybe?) all the way. Baaa Bummm. That he is working on a remake of Gareth Evans' The Raid does not bode well. 

The Man from Toronto is a comedy thriller about an inept man mistaken for an assassin, and then forced by said assassin to follow through on the deception. A familiar, and good premise; but yawn inducing delivery. Maybe Gareth Evans should redo it. Teddy (Kevin Hart, Jumanjii) is a terrible, inept person. He's convinced he is an entrepreneur, making terrible promo videos in his garage for products nobody in their right mind would buy. His delusional attitude gets him fired from his job, yet does not get him kicked out of his relationship by his overly forgiving wife Lori (Jasmine Matthews, The Tomorrow War). He has a moment of clarity and decides to give her a spa weekend away, but fucks it up by going to the wrong rented cabin (dude, fuck the fading toner, read the fucking email on your phone) where he is mistaken for an infamous assassin, The Man from Toronto. Teddy tries to play along and should be dead, when the FBI raids the cabin. End of movie. Or it should have been; instead, the FBI convince Teddy to continue to play the role of the assassin so they can track the real one down. The real assassin (Woody Harrelson, 2012) decides to make use of Teddy in his bid to complete the job. Hilarity ensues.

Not really. 

Its cute. It has some cute moments. Woody Harrelson's TMFT should be absolutely amoral and scary, but the movie wants to humanize his asocial behaviour as just a quirk and parallel his redemption in our eyes along with Teddy's. But Kevin Hart is Kevin Hart, which means I find him annoying AF. They do the now-usual romp around the world, to appear worldly, but each of the sets feel like backlots or green screens. And unfortunately, Toronto never really gets to be a character, which is a shame, because we look so good in the background of all the movies pretending to be Chicago, NYC, etc. The entire movie is as tired and uninspired as that poster.