Summary
A decent buddy pairing did a lot of heavy lifting here, but The Man From Toronto wasn’t the terrible time I feared it would be.
This review of the Netflix film The Man From Toronto does not contain spoilers.
The Man From Toronto follows the misadventures of a New York bum and an international assassin after their paths cross as a result of an AirBnB mix-up.
Films that manage to pleasantly exceed expectations are great! The Man From Toronto is exactly one of those types of films that I had very little hope of actually enjoying; I was aware of issues it had faced during production, but also, for the most part, I don’t really find Kevin Hart funny, so him being one of the top stars in a comedy had me bracing myself before it had even started.
But this actually made for some pretty fun casual viewing. The Man From Toronto would make for a good Friday night film with some company that you could share the more ridiculous laughs with.
There is definitely a massive buddy hint about the film – a completely mismatched pairing from two very different backgrounds coming together for the greater good. Granted, this is a more outrageous take on the genre, veering away from a more traditional cop-centric narrative and stepping into the world of international crime and the underworld networks that move in that circle.
As I mentioned previously, Kevin Hart would usually be enough to put me off watching a film because he always turns up as the same version of himself, no matter what is going on around him. Whilst that was certainly the case in The Man From Toronto, it’s like everyone involved knew he was the constant variable, so everything else had to bend to accommodate him. This is where Woody Harrelson worked brilliantly. Admittedly, he was always the reason I had any interest in watching this film; I think he has fantastic comedic chops, but in a drier, more cynical way that nicely diluted how over-the-top Hart can get when he really goes for it. In a way, it was a bit like watching an unimpressed dad who had been left with the baby all day, or an old dog having to deal with a new pup. Harrelson showed irritability towards Hart’s character that gained an affectionate tint as the film played out, and was very relatable.
There was plenty of absurd action too, which I’m always a sucker for in the right setting – slow-motion running from unnecessarily massive explosions, just like the 90s used to make. Some of the combat set-pieces were fun to watch too, however, I wasn’t a huge fan of the ‘one-shot’ fights that definitely weren’t one-shot. Where they tried to blend the cuts together was pretty noticeable and really took me out of the moment on more than one occasion.
Something I thought was an odd choice, however, was the PG-13/12 cert The Man From Toronto seemed to be tailor-made for. This definitely restricted how far they could take things, and I think to have taken the leap to the higher age bracket would’ve paid off massively.
In spite of its issues, however, The Man From Toronto really wasn’t the terrible time I’d feared it would be. A decent buddy pairing definitely did a lot of heavy lifting here, let there be no misunderstanding about that, but as far as harmlessly average casual viewing goes, there are a lot of far worse titles out there.
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