Written by Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen & Rawson Marshall Thurber.
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber.
★★½
This movie is a little schizophrenic. On one hand, the chemistry between the two leads is enjoyable, and the characters are full of potential. On the other hand, it's really dumb. Dumb funny wins the day.
Kevin Hart plays Calvin Joyner, the most popular kid from high school who, on the eve of his 20-year high school reunion, is feeling like a flop. He's an accountant at a large firm, and he keeps missing out on promotions. He receives a Facebook friend request from "Bob Stone" and accepts, and suddenly Bob shows up. He's actually Robby Weirdich (Dwayne Johnson), a bullied kid Calvin was nice to once, but now he looks like The Rock.
Calvin slowly finds out that Bob is a CIA agent, but he also might be a rogue agent, as Bob's old boss (Amy Ryan) is trying to catch him or kill him.
There isn't much thought put in the central mystery, as the emphasis is on pairing Johnson and Hart together and just seeing what happens. There's a ton of potential in their pairing, and I wish this had been a smarter movie. It's from the writer/director of Dodgeball (which I liked), so it's more on that level, but Thurber has no idea how to stage the fights and action scenes, so the movie is best when it's not dealing with any of that.
Overall I was entertained. I'd see the sequel if they made one. I just hope they don't squander their potential.
