Netflix And Chill: 72 Hours (2026)

It's almost impressive how Kevin Hart has managed to move from mediocrity to painfully unfunny in an attempt to keep cashing the streaming service paychecks. I have often gone for his movies as an easy choice for a weekend distraction, and they used to work in a very basic way, but now I'll just keep associating him with absolute awfulness. Because even many Kevin Hart fans will tell you how bad this is.

Hart plays Joe, an advertising exec trying to land a big contract with a vodka company. He has his life together, in many ways, but also hasn't given full commitment to his partner, Jennifer (Teyana Taylor), or his own career ambition. And he might be in trouble. His latest pitch hasn't gone down well, with many thinking that he's now too old to figure out how to make ads appeal to the younger generation. Thankfully, he ends up accidentally added to a WhatsApp group chat between four young guys out to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of their friend, Mason (Mason Gooding). After initially having a bit of fun with them, Joe offers to fund most of their trip in exchange for spending some time with them. The guys think that Joe just wants to party, which is partly true, but Joe is also aiming to get an insight, and some covertly-filmed footage, to help him in his job. He's certainly not aiming to cross paths with a dangerous drug dealer (Jaze, played by Michael Mando).

Tim Story is the director here. While rarely one of my favourites, he's been delivering moderately enjoyable fare for a few decades now. You wouldn't know that from watching this. Both the direction and the screenplay, written by four different people, ends up relying far too much on the star power of Hart, putting him in a variety of situations where he can do his usual mix of mugging, insults, and nervousness.

Things wouldn't be so bad if Hart was surrounded by some top-tier talent. He's not. That isn't to say that those playing the younger characters (Gooding, Marcello Hernández, Kam Patterson, and Ben Marshall) are bad. Gooding continues to be an easy onscreen presence to like, and the other three work well enough with the material they're given, but they're not up to the task of pushing one another in ways that could have turned weak material into something more amusing and entertaining. Mando does well in another role he could play in his sleep by now, Taylor is woefully underused, considering the caché she has right now, and there's not much added from the likes of Zach Cherry, Kevin Dunn, and Andy Garcia in supporting roles. It's actually another Garcia (Anna, no relation to Andy) who rises above the predictable and tired plotting to provide a couple of welcome extra laughs.

Connections are made, life lessons are learned, and things look at their bleakest before taking an upturn during the third act. You know this is going to happen from the start. Not only does the film provide no surprises, not a one, but it presents itself as if it has been created by people who believe they are doing something genuinely good. Which makes it even more saddening and infuriating. If I could at least see someone struggling to hide their pain then I would have hope. I don't, and I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually got something like Another 72 Hours in the next year or two.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Taxi (2004)

An American remake of an action comedy from the late 1990s, one written by no less than Luc Besson, Taxi has a good bit of talent behind the camera. Tim Story is the director, and the screenplay is from Robert Ben Garant, Jim Kouf, and Thomas Lennon. It's just a shame that Jimmy Fallon is one of the leads.

Queen Latifah is Isabelle 'Belle' Williams, a woman who is at the very start of her career as a taxi driver. She has spent years being a courier, and has even managed to get caught speeding while whizzing about on her bicycle. She's a very talented driver, and very quick. That's why she proves to be a useful asset when a police officer named Andrew Washburn (Fallon) jumps into the back of her cab and asks her to head to the site of a nearby bank robbery. Williams and Washburn end up working together on the case, although it's not made official. But it might take a speedy and slick taxi driver to catch a speedy and slick getaway driver. 

Despite the work of the writers, there's nothing very witty or entertaining here, not outwith the stunt driving anyway. A large part of that is due to the screenplay just being a bit too thin, but I think the problem is almost equally down to having Fallon in the role of Washburn. While I can tolerate him in some of his TV spots, Fallon has never done enough in movies to fully win me over, which is a major hurdle when he's given a lead role.

Queen Latifah certainly tries her best to balance out the awfulness of Fallon though, and she's fantastic in her role (as she has been in many of the movies she has starred in). She cannot carry the whole film on her shoulders though, and that's what is being asked of her. Henry Simmons isn't too bad, playing her partner, and Ann-Margret has fun in her scenes, but Jennifer Esposito, Gisele Bündchen, and everyone else are just disappointing non-entities.

Similar to so many other American remakes of “foreign-language” originals, Taxi succeeds when it replicated the scenes that worked just as well in the original, but falters in the attempts to make everything more appealing to mainstream American audiences. You can watch this and not hate it. You’re unlikely to enjoy it as much as the first film though, as long as you can overcome the teeny tiny obstacle of subtitles.

This review may not have given you anything substantial to digest. Nor does the movie. I'm happy enough to have been critical without being too insulting. I'd encourage people to check out almost anything else directed by Tim Story, or indeed anything else starring Queen Latifah.  

4/10

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Prime Time: The Pickup (2025)

There have been many movies made that show people trying to rob an armored truck full of cash. Some are very good, some are not. The Pickup makes use of the concept to give us a crime comedy that partners up Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson. I enjoyed it, but I tend to like Pete Davidson in most things anyway.

Murphy plays Russell Pierce, a man who just wants his workday done so that he can get to a dinner with his wife (Natalie, played by Eva Longoria) as they celebrate 25 years of marriage. Unfortunately, Pierce is saddled with the young and dumb Travis Stolly (Pete Davidson). Even more unfortunately, the armored truck that they're driving is targeted by robbers who seem to know what part of their route takes them through a dead zone that renders them isolated and helpless. Pierce and Stolly won't give up without a fight though, especially when they figure that the robbers will kill them when they get inside the truck anyway. Oh, there's also a woman named Zoe (Keke Palmer), someone Stolly had a very nice night with recently. She might be able to help our leads, but the whole situation is complicated by a lack of clearly-defined morality and some unexpected and messy emotions.

While I know director Tim Story better than I know writers Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, I wouldn't say that I would rush to see any film just because his name was attached to it. This was a film that I was sold on by the cast, but I have to give it to Story, Burrows, and Mider for playing to the strengths of their cast in a way that makes it a lot easier to accept the predictable plotting and implausibilities while being amused by the many fun exchanges between the leads. 

Davidson does his goofy thing well enough, but his nervous energy works very well opposite a more relaxed and mature Murphy, who still gets a chance to utter one or two sentences that feel like the kind of thing you would hear from him during his peak movie years. Palmer remains a consistently brilliant and valuable addition to any film she graces with her presence, and there's a palpable feeling here of her loving every minute that she gets to interact with her comedic male co-stars, but particularly when she gets to be alongside Murphy (who, despite the many bumps in his career, remains a certified legend). Longoria does well in her much smaller role, Andrew Dice Clay is a horrible boss who you know cares much more about his trucks than any of his employees, and Marshawn Lynch makes a strong impression in his couple of scenes. Jack Kesy and Ismael Cruz Cordova are a convincing threat as two dangerous robbers, but they're also shown to have a main weakness when they consistently underestimate the people they're trying to rob.

Solid entertainment from start to finish, this has enough laughs and a few decent action beats. The laughs are executed better than the stunts, but the two are blended just about to perfection. You can take points off if you dislike any of the leads. Everyone else can go to this as an easy viewing choice when looking for some new comedy. The fact that the runtime is only 94 minutes is also a plus. It might just be the little pickup that you need.

7/10

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Dashing Through The Snow (2023)

A film in which Ludacris plays someone named Chris Kringle, obviously. Oh no, wait, he plays someone named Chris Bridges. No. No, no, no, that is also wrong. Chris “Ludacris” Bridges plays Eddie Garrick. That is how I wanted to start this review. It would seem, from his billing here, that Ludacris may be wanting to creep towards having a name that is a bit less, well, ludicrous. Which is all well and good, and understandable, but I am still going to refer to him as Ludacris for the rest of this review. It’s just much easier, it’s advantageous for him, and we will wait and see if he eventually drops the moniker completely.

So, to summarize, Eddie Garrick is a man who doesn’t really believe in the magic of Christmas. He tries his best to help others who might be struggling with the season though, using his skills as a social worker to help defuse any situation when someone is going through a crisis. Picking up his daughter for a Christmas Eve visit, Eddie then ends up encountering an individual who claims to be Santa. Whether or not he is, he is in trouble, having accidentally picked up an iPad that belongs to some bad people while misplacing his own (which has Santa’s list on it - tech changes, but the Santa basic’s don’t).

Written by Scott Rosenberg and directed by Tim Story, this is a film not lacking in talent behind the camera. Both of those men have been involved with some enjoyable blockbuster movies. They are tasked here with delivering not just a Christmas movie, but a Disney Christmas movie. This is fairly obvious and unsophisticated fare, mixing in some father-daughter bonding, a Santa who never feels like he might not be Santa, and the kind of inept criminals who would be outsmarted by a small child in the later Home Alone sequels.

Ludacris is fine in the main role, being as grumpy and cynical as he needs to be up until the inevitable turning point. Madison Skye Validum is also very good, playing the daughter who easily accepts the potential for magic and might help her dad see things a bit differently. She’s unfazed by the events unfolding around her, happy to be on such a crazy adventure with her dad. As for the Santa figure, that’s Lil Rel Howery in the red suit, and he’s a lot of fun in the role, being as jolly and carefree as expected, yet also slightly manipulative while helping teach someone a lesson. Teyonnah Parris is stuck in a very minor supporting role, Oscar Nuñez is the brains behind the criminal shenanigans for the evening, and there are one or two other familiar faces in the cast (including Mary Lynn Rajskub).

Although obviously a family film, this often feels like it  is trying to appeal to younger kids ahead of anyone else. That’s fine, especially in the scenes that work well (and most children will be very pleased by a finale that brings in a fun “cavalry” to help our main characters), but it’s clear sometimes that the film holds back from being as creative or silly as it could have been. Someone wanted this to “skew young”, but not at the same corner of more general appeal. Which makes it slightly less satisfying, because it feels like two tonally different films forced together like a couple of jigsaw pieces showing different parts of the same picture. You could say, mayyyyyybe, that it would have benefited from being a bit more ludicrous, ironically enough.

5/10

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The Blackening (2023)

Expanding a skit by comedy group 3Peat, and riffing on the well-known horror trope of the black character most often being the first to die, The Blackening is a slasher comedy that I was looking forward to for some time. The marketing was pretty good, and the tagline - "we can't all die first" - was brilliantly on point. 

There's a small prologue showing a couple of people in danger, but then it's business as usual. A group of people meet up at a cabin in the woods, all there for an overdue bit of quality time with their friends during the Juneteenth holiday (a date that celebrates the end of slavery in the USA). Unfortunately, someone has set up a deadly game for them to participate in. That game involves answering various questions revolving around black culture, with a wrong answer due to result in great pain, and even death. It might be time, this time around,  for the "least black" main characters to be endangered ahead of the others. But that pits our characters against one another, as they start to prove their race credentials to one another, playing on stereotypes and clichés that are also subverted as things start to twist and turn on the way to a final act revealing the killer and motivation.

Written by Tracy Oliver (who has delivered a number of fun scripts in the past 6-7 years) and Dewayne Perkins (a member of 3Peat, and someone with a decent selection of TV credits to his name already), The Blackening is a film full of potential, and the first half hits pretty much every target. Director Tim Story has been in the game long enough to handle the material with a steady guiding hand, and the simplicity of the setting keeps the focus on the various friendships and rivalries within the main group of characters.

The cast all have fun in their roles, whether they're playing things broadly or allowed to be more low-key, and I think everyone did their best to ensure that the script was delivered as well as could be. Grace Byers, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Perkins (hey, if you co-write a screenplay then you may as well give yourself a part), Jermaine Fowler, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji interact well with one another, and convince when faced with a masked killer, and Diedrich Bader is good fun as the aptly-named Ranger White, a character who spends a lot of time ensuring that his words aren't misconstrued when his priority should be stopping a killing spree.

Sadly, as is often the case with many horror comedies, the biggest problem here is the balance of the genre elements. There are some great laughs here, with the script often never too far away from a smart and witty observation, but there aren't any real scares or tension (decent opening sequence aside). Which means that the third act, where laughs are a bit less frequent, stumbles along to resolve everything with an underwhelming sigh. It's so disappointing that it drags down the entire movie, but there's still just enough here to make it worth a watch. And you have to bear in mind that I am saying this as a plain white Brit, so I am sure there are many African American people who will get even more out of it than I did.

A great concept, well-realised during a number of scenes, but it's a shame that there couldn't have been a better handling of the horror elements alongside the comedy. Maybe they'll do better with that if there's a sequel.

6/10

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Tom & Jerry (2021)

Things didn't bode well for this film. The trailer was bad. Nobody seemed to want it. And I have horrible memories of the last time people tried to make Tom & Jerry more appealing to modern audiences. The characters were talking. Their antics were sanitised. It was a bad period in the history of arguably the most iconic cartoon duo of all time.

But I sat down to watch this anyway, spurred on by a positive review from a friend of mine. And it wasn't really that bad.

Jerry has decided to make his new home in the Royal Gate Hotel, which is set to be the venue for the grand wedding of the year. Chloë Grace Moretz is Kayla, a new employee at the hotel, and is tasked with getting rid of the mouse. That leads to her hiring Tom as a solution to the problem. Things don't go to plan, of course, and it looks like the big wedding could also be jeopardised by the cat and mouse carnage.

Directed by Tim Story, and written by Kevin Costello, Tom & Jerry is a fun mix of animation and live-action delivered by people who at least seem to understand the enduring appeal of the featured cartoons. A number of other animals are also presented in animated form, and the style and behaviour of the animals is nicely in line with our "heroes". Everything is a bit silly and over the top, but it's all set up quite well by the script, and Story directs it all well, zipping along from one highlight to the next, occasionally taking a moment just to focus on some animated one-upmanship. It's also nice to see a journey for Tom & Jerry plotted out that seems to make sense, changing their dynamic while somehow not making them feel unfamiliar to long-time fans.

Moretz may be the lead, and is the one doing the most acting alongside the animation, but she's heading up a decent cast, with everyone pitching their performances perfectly between standard family film levels of behaviour and animated exaggeration. Michael Peña is fun as Terence, a hotel employee who senses something strange is going on, Rob Delaney is the hotel manager, Patsy Ferran is a wonderfully odd Bell Girl, and Pallavi Sharda and Colin Jost play Preeta and Ben, the couple who are due to be married. Tom and Jerry name the movie, however, and they're given many moments to show that they're the stars. As it should be.

Although not on par with the classic cartoons, nor on par with many other fun family movies (live-action, animated, or using a mixture of elements), Tom & Jerry is an entertaining film that gets more right than it gets wrong. Slapstick violence, ridiculous schemes, and a friendship forged from constant battling, it's certainly good enough for any fans who can tolerate seeing them in a modern setting.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: Shaft (2019)

You know the name. Shaft is the cool cat that we've been digging since he first appeared in cinemas back in the early 1970s. Richard Roundtree played the role, and memorably. A reworking of the bad mother (shut your mouth . . . but I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft) appeared in 2000, with Samuel L. Jackson taking on the main role. And now we have a film that features both of those actors playing the role, although the former isn't onscreen for long, while introducing a new member to the family (played by Jessie T. Usher).

Usher is JJ Shaft, a young man who hasn't seen his father in many years. That's because his mother (Maya, played by Regina Hall) decided to leave, in order to keep her son safe from the kind of trouble that his father would attract. But when JJ needs help to investigate the death of a good friend, he ends up tracking down his father, John Shaft (Jackson). Bones are broken, bullets fly, women start to find the danger arousing, and Shaft and Shaft Jr hurtle towards a grand finale that will require the help of someone equally capable. Grandpa AKA John Shaft, Sr (Roundtree).

Shaft is an enjoyable comedy, with some decent action beats that don't skimp on the gunfire and bloodshed, but that is something that will upset a lot of fans. It's not something that bothered me, however, mainly because the main incarnations of the character that we have seen before were rarely the butt of any jokes. Usher plays a man brought up in a very different world, and with a very different attitude, but the secret to getting things done is usually adding on a bit of that patented Shaft badassery. And it's fair enough to highlight the fact that the classic traits of the character wouldn't necessarily be as appreciated today as they have been in previous decades (although they're only really unappreciated here by other people who have not spent a decent amount of time in Shaft's world).

Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow have put together a decent script, allowing the leads to have some very entertaining moments together, and peppering many scenes with dialogue that both works for the characters and also proves amusing enough. It feels like a good pairing, with Barris having a few more movies under his belt and Barnow having a decent selection of TV shows under his.

As just mentioned, Jackson and Usher work well together. The former is his usual persona, Usher spends a lot of the movie playing catch up (although he does have one or two tricks up his sleeve, and has more skill than is immediately apparent). Roundtree still has his full serving of charisma, which makes his limited screentime all the more frustrating. The villains are decent enough, and Titus Welliver delivers a great little turn as The Man, the immediate boss to JJ who doesn't ever give him an opportunity to reach his full potential. The ladies may be sidelined for a lot of the runtime, but that doesn't stop both Hall and Alexandra Shipp (playing Sasha, a good friend to JJ) doing their best with what they're given. Both manage to stand out in a fill overflowing with testosterone, as does Luna Lauren Velez, in the role of a potential lead/criminal named Bennie Rodriguez.

Director Tim Story keeps everything moving nicely. This is a 110-minute movie that whizzes by. There's a great soundtrack (although it's missing one classic cut), some entertaining set-pieces, and a central investigation with a couple of twists and turns, despite the fact that most viewers will be able to point to at least one of the main villains within their first few scenes. And Shaft is still also very much Shaft. As is Shaft. JJ, on the other hand, well, he needs a lot of work. But he might be able to find his own Shaftiness by the time the end rolls around.

There are already mixed reviews appearing for this, and just as many advising viewers to stay away. Don't listen to The Man. Give it a watch and make your own mind up.

7/10

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Americans can get a Roundtree triple-bill here.

Ride Along (2014)

A mainstream comedy that lets you know what to expect from the title, and the two leads, Ride Along is the kind of movie that it's almost redundant to review. Basically, a LOT of people will already know whether they're going to like or dislike this movie.

Ice Cube is a tough cop, James Payton, obsessed with catching the biggest criminal in the city. His main problem is that nobody knows what this criminal looks like. For every bust that takes him a step closer, James seems to find himself pushed a step back, either by criminals or his own superior (Bruce McGill). Kevin Hart is Ben Barber, a young man who is working as a security guard until he hopes to join the Police Academy and get a career in the force. His girlfriend, Angela Payton (Tika Sumpter), loves him very much, but she wants him to get on a bit better with her brother (yep, it's the tough cop) as they move forward in their relationship. Ben asks James for a chance to make up for one past mistake, a chance to prove himself, and so James arranges to pick him up for a ride along. Of course, he wants to make sure that Ben has a horrible time of it. That's all well and good until real criminals start to cause them some problems.

Written by four people, which is three too many when you think of the solid gag count, and directed by Tim Story, Ride Along is absolutely in line with numerous other mainstream comedy hits from the past few years. It relies on the draw of Cube and Hart, it offers no surprises at all, and it's designed to appeal to people after nothing more than 90 minutes of fun at their local cinema. That doesn't make it a terrible film. It doesn't make it evil. It doesn't mean that everyone should roll their eyes and start moaning about the death of cinema. It just means that this is designed to be the popular fast food option at the multiplex, vying with a few other fast food options to see who can ring more money through the tills for a couple of weeks.

Cube can do comedic anger in his sleep, and he's perfectly fine in his role, while Hart does . . . . . what he does. He's not to all tastes, and I'm not his biggest fan, but he's far from the most annoying person I've ever watched onscreen. In fact, the first half of the movie does throw him one or two moments that allow him to show that his character isn't just a one-dimensional buffoon. The fact that he knows so much information about weaponry because of his constant online gaming is also a fun additional detail. Sumpter is likable, McGill is always worth a watch, John leguizamo and Bryan Callen are both okay as Cube's colleagues, and Laurence Fishburne does well with his fairly limited screentime (it's a big shame that he didn't get to do more).

If you don't like fairly safe comedies then avoid this one. If you don't like Hart then avoid this one. At least it doesn't try to convince you that it's something it's not. I admit that I expected to hate the thing, but opted to "take one for the team". I ended up, however, smiling on a couple of occasions. I don't think I ever once laughed aloud, but I didn't feel pained at any point either. Faint praise, indeed, but praise nonetheless.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Ride-Along-Blu-ray-DIGITAL-UltraViolet/dp/B00HX1FD5Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1408894291&sr=1-1&keywords=ride+along