Prime Time: Role Play (2023)

I like Kaley Cuoco, and have done for some time. As unpopular as it seems to be nowadays, I enjoyed The Big Bang Theory, and I enjoyed her in it. I am, however, happy to see the variety of roles she has taken on since that show ended, roles that have had people belatedly realising she can do more than just one type of acting.

For as much as I like Kaley Cuoco, I loathed Role Play, a film that feels lazy and predictable from start to finish. It is a mix of action, comedy, and drama that does none of those individual elements as successfully as it should. In fact, it does absolutely none of them well, only coming close during the few scenes that feature a wonderful turn from Bill Nighy.

Cuoco and David Oyelowo play a married couple, Emma and Dave, who get a babysitter for the kids and  head out for a fun date night at a hotel, with a bit of fun role play on the cards. Unfortunately, Emma is frustrated by her work getting in the way. Her work, unbeknownst to her hubby, involves killing people. And so begins a trudge through some familiar tropes that have been done so much better in so many other movies. It’s so tiresomely dull that I can barely find the energy to write this review.

Writer Seth W. Owen is the person I want to rush to blame, considering the humourless and flat script, but director Thomas Vincent does an equally poor job of steering the ship. The fact that the cast cannot elevate the material is more of a testament to how bad that material is, as opposed to the skills of the actors.

Cuoco isn’t allowed to shine, with the exception of those scenes that have her interacting with Nighy, and there’s a disappointing lack of any chemistry with Oyelowo (although that is a plot point, the night of role play stems from them wanting a special date night to give them a bit of a spark again). Oyelowo plays his character as Mr. Dependable, but he’s left with nothing meaningful to do, apart from needing saved by his wife. If I spend much more time praising Nighy then people will start to rightly notice my overwhelming love for the man, but he absolutely steals the film with his few minutes of screentime. Connie Nielsen is wasted, although you can tell that she is trying to make a steak with the minced meat she is given, as is Rhudi Dharmalingam. Nobody else is worth mentioning, for good or bad, because the rest of the cast could just have easily been filled out by Sims.

Although technically competent, there’s something about this that makes it feel worse than many movies that don’t even get the camerawork and audio right. It’s depressing, mainly because it seems to have been thrown together with a minimum effort that shows a real disdain for potential viewers.

3/10

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Prime Time: Meet Cute (2022)

If you look over the short filmography of writer Noga Pnueli then you will see that she seems to have a fascination with time travel/time loops, and how people may try to use it to change themselves, or change the people they care about. I am only going by the plot summaries here, having not seen any of her other work, but I am now keen to see how she has been working and reworking this idea for the past few years, because Meet Cute is good enough to make me into an instant fan of her.

The premise seems quite simple, and familiar. Kaley Cuoco is Sheila, a young woman who approached Gary (Pete Davidson) in a bar. She offers to buy him a drink, and they stick together for an enjoyable date night. Things aren't what they seem though. Sheila has gone through this date multiple times, thanks to a time machine she makes use of in the back of a nail salon, and she wants to keep enjoying the perfect night. While relishing the opportunity to fix her own life, because this bit of time travel came along just after a very low point, Sheila also realises that she can "fix" Gary. She can mould him into someone absolutely perfect. But maybe he's already perfect for her. And maybe she shouldn't meddle around in the past without considering "the butterfly effect".

Director Alex Lehmann also has a fairly small filmography, for anyone wanting to explore it, but this is the first film from him that I have enjoyed. Other people liked Blue Jay, but I was underwhelmed by it. Funnily enough, it's easy to see a connection between that film and this though, considering the moments in which one character is going through the motions and celebrating a complete relationship that the other character is often unaware of. Lehmann does a good job here, keeping everything lively and interesting enough while allowing the focus to remain on the script and his leads.

As for those leads, both Davidson and Cuoco are excellent. I have, for some reason, always thought I disliked Davidson, but time and time again he delivers moments onscreen (whether in his many acting roles or in his live comedy work) that really work for me. His self-deprecating manner, his ability to tap into his own darkness and discomfort, even his way of leaning fully into complete asshole mode, he's always fascinating and entertaining to watch. And he sometimes gets to be awkward and sweet, as he is here. Cuoco is someone I always liked in her TV work (yes, hate the show all you want, I was easily amused by The Big Bang Theory whenever I watched it), but she deserves to be in more lead movie roles, especially after proving her range in recent projects like this and The Flight Attendant. Meet Cute gets dark at times, very dark, and it's the winning charisma of Davidson and Cuoco that stop it from ever being too dark. Deborah S. Craig is fun in her small role, June (guardian of the time machine), and it was good to see Kevin Corrigan onscreen, even if he was in the fairly thankless role of "Phil the bartender".

Although I do love a good time loop movie, they are often quite similar to one another when it comes to the execution of the material. You see the key moments that will signify repeating time, you see many changes being made to attempt to change the end result, etc. Meet Cute has those moments in place, but they're interspersed throughout the film in a way that helps the whole thing to feel a bit different from many other films in this sub-genre. And almost none of it seems to matter by the time we get to the end, which moves away from the fantastical element to instead underline the main message about not dwelling on the past.

Funny, sweet, painful, and smart. Highly recommended.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Man From Toronto (2022)

Kevin Hart plays a typical Kevin Hart type in this action comedy from the director of The Hitman’s Bodyguard. All you need to know right now is that this film isn’t even as good as The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which wasn’t any kind of modern classic itself.

I don’t even have the energy to relate the plot, as tired and overdone as it is, but here is the very basic outline. Teddy (Hart) ends up somewhere with people who mistakenly assume he is the very dangerous, and skilled, Man From Toronto (Woody Harrelson). Because he ends up involved in a job that has two or there main objectives, authorities want Teddy to keep up the pretence, to lure out The Man, while The Man ends up also wanting Teddy to keep up the pretence, for some convoluted reason to do with maintaining consistent identity from the first part of the job. Teddy just wants to stay alive long enough to make things up to his long-suffering wife, Lori (Jasmine Mathews). And blah blah blah blah blah.

This is a prime example of what happens when you marry a weak script (from Robbie Fox and Chris Bremner) to a weak director, fail to have main cast members who are charismatic enough to distract from the many negative aspects of the film, and think that viewers will be kept amused by action set-pieces that complement the physicality of the actors with an excessive amount of CGI (the effects often far from top quality work, it has to be said). As much as I disliked The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and the sequel, I was able to enjoy some moments thanks to the casting of Reynolds and Jackson. Hart and Harrelson aren’t the right fit for the roles they are given here.

There is nothing in the script that feels at all real, in terms of the movie world it is presenting. The Man From Toronto is supposed to be a mystery figure, yet a lot is known about him and he doesn’t exactly hide his identity, or even try to be subtle. Teddy isn’t ever developed as a character who really aims to change by the time the end credits roll (in fact, it could be argued that he doesn’t change at all from the start to the finish). And as for the mission at the heart of everything? Think about it for more than two seconds and you will see how ridiculous it is for anyone to be letting Teddy take the central role.

I guess those who like to see Hart doing his usual schtick will find some laughs here, and Harrelson isn’t terrible (he just doesn’t quite work in the role, due to a mix of the writing and his casting), but the supporting cast generally do better with much less screentime. Mathews is a pleasant presence, Kaley Cuoco is fun in the role of her friend, and Pierson Fode keeps things lively whenever he appears, playing The Man From Miami.

The final extended fight sequence has a number of fun moments, but is also dragged down by too much time spent cramming in camerawork flourishes and CGI, and you may start to realise just how few and far between the laughs were when you get to an end scene that is supposed to provide some extra chuckles, but doesn't. I'm not going to say that this is entirely laugh-free, and Hart fans will rush to strongly disagree with me, but it's disappointingly miserable with any jokes that actually work. Can we maybe encourage director Patrick Hughes to move away from trying to make comedies, he's just not very good at it.

3/10

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