2018 has been an uncommonly good year for studio comedies, with the likes of Game Night, Blockers, and Crazy Rich Asians proving that it’s still possible to combine strong plotting with consistent, bellyaching laughs. On paper, Night School — which, in addition to being headlined by two of the sharpest comedians working today in Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, is also director Malcolm D. Lee’s follow up to international hit Girls Trip — has all the necessary ingredients to be part of that lauded trend. In actuality, it fails to even scrape a passing grade.
No fewer than six writers have been credited with the screenplay, which has Hart’s Teddy Walker enrolling in night school to get his General Equivalency Diploma after accidentally burning down his workplace, all the while keeping it a secret from his rich fiancée Lisa (a wasted Megalyn Echikunwoke). The sequence in which we meet his fellow classmates — including a frustrated but “blessed” mum (Mary Lynn Rajskub), a kind prison inmate (Fat Joe), and a Mexican immigrant who dreams of being both a singer and a dental hygienist (Al Madrigal, by far the funniest of the group) — is one of the film’s highlights. But in its haste to give each of these misfits a mini-arc, the characters all come off as one-note.
It doesn’t help that Night School is content to waste screen time on unfunny, meaningless set pieces. While Hart has been able to offset poor material in the past, his shtick has rarely been more tiresome than it is here. Haddish fares a little better as the teacher who loves to spar — both verbally and physically — with her students, but she’s hamstrung by having to play it straight for the majority of the movie.
There are moments when the more thoughtful, character-driven movie Night School could have been peek-throughs; a far too late reveal that Teddy has learning disabilities is an intriguing narrative swerve that’s frustratingly played for cheap laughs, and the closing messages of being honest with one’s self and redeeming past mistakes, while worthwhile, feel unearned. It’s indicative of a film that, like Teddy himself, takes one too many shortcuts.
