The Man from Toronto

Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson star in director Patrick Hughes’s fish out of water action comedy. Hart is Teddy, a frustrated salesman, trying to find his route to fame and fortune via several failed attempts to find the next fitness “big thing”. When he tries to do the right thing with a romantic birthday trip for his wife (Jasmine Matthews) he accidentally stumbles into the life of Harrelson’s Man from Toronto. He quickly finds himself mixed up with the FBI and a major terrorist plot. When Teddy finally meets Toronto, Toronto realises he needs him to complete his job so Teddy finds himself out of his depth but with no choice but to hang on!

This is a very nuts and bolts “fish out of water comedy” which spends its 110 minutes ticking the checklist of things you’d expect. Teddy the frustrated dreamer, wants to do better, but his own doubts sabotage the things he’s trying to achieve. Toronto does bad things for a living, but wants out and this one last job is his chance. Both stand up to the challenge of their situation and become better for knowing each other.

It’s not a terrible film, Hart does the thing he does and Harrelson is always watchable. It’s just very predictable. In fact If you’ve seen Hart in Central Intelligence with Dwayne Johnson, then you have already seen this film, just a much better version of it.

While it zips along and there is some entertaining action sequences and some funny lines, none of it is quite good enough. Not entertaining enough or funny enough and about half way through I thought I’d be better off watching Central Intelligence again!

The Man from Toronto, is not a terrible film, just a very average one. Hugely formulaic, reminding you of much better versions of the same thing, including much better versions with Kevin Hart in them. It’s on Netflix and it will pass an evening, but to be honest watch Central Intelligence instead.