Teddy (Kevin Hart) is a successful salesperson at a BBQ store. He pretends to lead a wealthy and wise life as he daily tries to impress the love of his life. While asking for his girlfriend’s hand in marriage, his favourite BBQ store accidentally blows up. Teddy is now seeking for a new job, but most of them require Teddy to have completed his high school education which he never did in the past. Teddy’s girlfriend also has no idea that he had never finished high school and that his current lifestyle is a lie which he only carries out to impress her.

Teddy decides to get his life back on track, attending Night School so he can graduate. Along the way, Teddy is reunited with memories from his past and familiar high school classmates who are now grown up. Teddy’s classroom is also full of other random characters, including a criminal who tunes into the class via Skype. All addition characters in Teddy’s class are all here to try, and delivery more comedy as the film progresses.

With Night School bringing Kevin Hart in as the leading man as well as many other familiar actors, I was amazed to say I found Night School extremely disappointing.

The film is wanting to be a comedy film, but to my surprise, Night School has some of the worst comedy dialogue (scripting) I’ve seen in the line up of 2018 films. Sure, Kevin Hart does what he does best, carrying on with random outbursts and rants. But Night School fails because it gives us the same routine we always see from its actors (notably Kevin Hart). To makes matters worse, many scenes are filled with other characters who are just having rants, and the so-called comedy dialogue can go on for ages. In many cases, the conversation was so poorly written that I found myself cringing as the film tried to fill up time with characters waffling and ranting about complete nonsense. These moments are forgettable, and I don’t feel anyone viewing would find any of this dialogue memorable.

As a plot, this film had the potential to be a great comedy. I’ll go as far as saying the actors who surround Kevin Hart were also an excellent choice for this type of plot. It’s ultimately the film’s script that has hurt the film. Teddy (Kevin Hart) as a character is never really fleshed out nor given full resolution. There’s a reason why this person failed high school and lies to his girlfriend, but all of the in-depth facts are mostly avoided, and the reasons we do get in the film’s climax and ending feel unjustified given the themes and message the film tries to shows its audiences. One example of this is when Teddy struggles to remember what he’s learnt in school, so the solution is to have his teacher smash him up in a fighting ring until he remembers something he learnt in class sigh.

Overall I found Night School to be a massive disappointment as a comedy film. The poorly written script, which allows many actors (Including Kevin Hart) just to waffle bad dialogue, stops the movie from showing a creative story. The film also tries to get a little deep and give a reason as to why our leading man avoided high school, but sadly how this film does it feel more like the profound message is skipped over, and the film avoids what could have been a hard-hitting message or any heartfelt moments. I couldn’t wait for the credits to roll on this one which is a complete surprise and shock considering how much I usually enjoy Kevin Hart.

2.8/10

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Review Written by Peter Walkden