,em>Night School has, at most, four laughs and one heartwarming speech—a crummy ratio for a movie that’s 111 minutes. The rudimentary plot concerns Teddy (Kevin Hart) trying to get his G.E.D. so a buddy can hook him up with a finance job. Teddy attends night school, and his teacher, Carrie (Tiffany Haddish), is a hard-ass determined to make him learn. So far, so good. Unfortunately, there’s too much Hart (I’m admittedly lukewarm on him), not enough Haddish (I’m a fan), and she’s left to (mostly) play the straight man. The supporting players—including Art Madrigal, Romany Malco, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Taran Killam—get the wacky stuff, while Hart and Haddish are left holding the plot bag. But the wacky stuff is dumb and predictable, and the heartwarming stuff pisses all over itself with insipid jokes just when it starts to feel real.
Night School has six credited writers, and this is what happens to a cut-and-paste-job script, kids: You get a movie that doesn’t know what it is, and takes forever to get there. Stay in school, and learn to write better movies than this one.
By
David Riedel