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Kevin Hart gets a chance to play the straight man in Central Intelligence
B-Kevin Hart became a superstar by running his motormouth non-stop and flustering and frustrating co-stars from Ice Cube to Will Ferrell. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. In Central Intelligence, a relatively restrained Hart finds himself along for a wild ride with Dwayne Johnson, an actor who proves even more adept than Hart at stealing scenes. Surprisingly, Hart adapts just as easily to the straight man role here.
In Central Intelligence, Hart plays Calvin Joyner, the former high school Mr. Everything who’s now stuck in a humdrum existence as an accountant. Johnson, on the other hand, is the high school fat kid who was picked on by everyone except Joyner and has spent the 20 years since then working out and bulking up to become, well, The Rock (except he’s called Bob Stone here). Stone’s a government agent who is on the run from his boss (Amy Ryan), who thinks he’s a traitor, and he needs Calvin’s help to clear his name.
As in so many other buddy action movies, Central Intelligence features a needlessly convoluted plot that’s primarily an excuse to run its heroes through one lame action scene after another. Johnson occasionally gets to flex his muscles, while Hart ducks and cringes a lot, but there isn’t a single memorable moment in the various chases and shootouts that are rather routinely staged by director Rawson Marshall Thurber. What is memorable about Central Intelligence is the easygoing chemistry between the stars. Despite his musculature, Johnson plays Stone like a puppy dog eager to please, who’s fulfilling a boyhood dream of hanging out with his old idol. Hart, though, is far more serious and low-key than usual, so his occasional fits and tantrums are unusually effective. The movie also has a number of good sight gags, based on the enormous disparity in the two actors’ sizes, and two surprise unbilled cameos by perfectly cast stars also work well. The only real central intelligence that went into the making of this movie was the casting of the two leads, but, fortunately, that’s enough to keep this amiably lightweight film going .
In this scene, Dwayne Johnson wants to know whether Kevin Hart is in or out. Our full review of Central Intelligence will be posted on Silver Screen Cinema as soon as it is available.
Photo credit: “Kevin Hart_5927” by Western CT St. U Peggy Stewart / Flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0
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