Before I start this review, I want you to ponder the following: who cheats on a G.E.D. practice exam? Who would do that? And why? What could anyone stand to gain from cheating on a paper test intended to help you pass your real G.E.D. test, the one you have to pass, online, to get a high school diploma? I could sit through any Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Nolan, or Darren Aronofsky and not be as confused as I am at this moment. Does it help when I add that this wasn’t normal cheating? This was a coordinated bank-heist type break-in with putting the custodian in a sleeper hold, elaborate misdirection, and encrypted passwords.
I’m just gonna leave that be. Night School wasn’t winning me over when teenage Teddy (Kevin Hart) dissed the SAT and dropped out of school on the spot. It also didn’t win me over when presenting the picture a decade or two later where Porsche driving Teddy is successful and dating a woman (Megalyn Echikunwoke, the sequel to The Meg) who is not just the whole enchilada; she’s the entire taco truck. In addition to dating somebody out of everybody’s league, Teddy is the consistent #1 employee at a BBQ grill/propane outlet, I tell you what. What do we learn from dropping out of high school? That supermodel executives, Porsches, and fancy condos are in your future so long as you take care of your money. What a message for the kids; it took six guys to write that?
Turns out Teddy knows he’s in over his head and doesn’t want Lisa (Echikunwoke) to know he can’t afford his own life; he also believes that Lisa will leave him if he’s not as rich as he appears to be … ain’t that some shit, CeeLo? Cornered into paying for a fancy meal he cannot afford, Teddy surreptitiously reaches into his pants and yanks out pubic hair to garnish his cheesecake. You know, I watch a lot of baking shows, but I haven’t seen that move yet. Next move is to claim, “Ewwww!” and duck out on the $846 tab. Did I mention this is a our hero? Yes, we are apparently rooting for the Porsche driving, high school dropout dessert-pubes guy.
Oh, it gets better. The waiter challenges him on the accusation. I suppose this is all funny to some people. Me … less. You know what would be both funny and timely? Make the next move be a Kavanaugh-style “Senate Investigation” in which the FBI questions neither dinner party members, nor wait staff, nor anybody in the restaurant for that matter, but instead flags down three random passers-by and ask if they eat dinner. Then they conclude the investigation was thorough and exonerate Teddy completely. Now THAT would have been funny. Unfortunately, said movie moment is entirely in my mind.
Night School devolves into Teddy re-upping at his alma mater to get his GED so that the film can introduce Miss Cash-in, 2018 (Tiffany Haddish) and a box of mixed donuts. Honestly, it took well over an hour for this film to make me laugh … and when it did, the adult Night School students had co-opted a senior prom. That’s just kinda messed up, isn’t it? How would you like to have your Senior Prom dance floor be taken over by a bunch of adults? Why, yes, thank you, this memory of Rob Riggle and Mary Lynn Rajskub doing the middle-age worm or The Human Centipede or whatever is a memory I will treasure for all time.
This picture could well have been on the worst of the year list until the final fifteen minutes of film which finally brought both a smile and a lesson about perseverance. Until that point, however, the film is so awful in so many different ways that every ten minutes or so I questioned if there wasn’t some elective dental surgery I was missing. I was certainly missing something.
♪Where did my job go, lady
And ooh won’t you take me back?
Write away my pay baby
Macaroni is all for me
Dark my condo
Super turned off heat
Don’t you know now
I’ve got naught but time
I can make it right
Or pump gas tonight
I’m not bright school is just a pain
Gotta bone up on some facts
I want to enroll (G-E-D)
Gen’ral Ed Dev
I need some learnin’ (R-R-R)
What’s that? Don’t care
My hopes have been impaired
Been impaired♫
Rated PG-13, 111 Minutes
Director: Malcolm D. Lee, who has done so much better than this
Writer: Kevin Hart & Harry Ratchford & Joey Wells & Matthew Kellard and Nicholas Stoller and John Hamburg. Six writers. SIX. And not a single genuine laugh until Act III
Genre: Kevin Hart tests limits, patience
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The person who showed up exactly for the last 15 minutes
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Everybody else
♪ Parody Inspired by “P.Y.T”
