{"id":15428,"date":"2026-07-24T06:26:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T01:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15428"},"modified":"2026-07-24T06:26:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T01:26:52","slug":"kevin-hart-in-a-mediocre-generation-gap-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15428","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Hart in a Mediocre Generation-Gap Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tGreat comedies are in short supply these days, but \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/72-hours\/\" id=\"auto-tag_72-hours\" data-tag=\"72-hours\">72 Hours<\/a>\u201d offers a reminder that a crime subplot can quickly ruin even a potentially average one. Directed by <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/tim-story\/\" id=\"auto-tag_tim-story\" data-tag=\"tim-story\">Tim Story<\/a> (\u201cBarbershop,\u201d \u201cRide Along\u201d) and written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (the \u201cHarold &amp; Kumar\u201d trilogy, \u201cAmerican Reunion\u201d), this latter-day \u201cHangover\u201d retread did not need to do anything but, you know, deliver laughs in order to tickle audiences\u2019 funny bones. But even with a cast led by <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/kevin-hart\/\" id=\"auto-tag_kevin-hart\" data-tag=\"kevin-hart\">Kevin Hart<\/a> and stacked with \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d alums Marcello Hern\u00e1ndez, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/ben-marshall\/\" id=\"auto-tag_ben-marshall\" data-tag=\"ben-marshall\">Ben Marshall<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/kam-patterson\/\" id=\"auto-tag_kam-patterson\" data-tag=\"kam-patterson\">Kam Patterson<\/a>, this summertime confection from <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/netflix\/\" id=\"auto-tag_netflix\" data-tag=\"netflix\">Netflix<\/a> frantically \u2014 and disappointingly \u2014 throws everything at the wall in the hopes that something will stick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHart plays Joe, a 40-year-old advertising executive who mistakenly gets added to a group text for the Miami bachelor party of Mason (Mason Gooding), which is being thrown by his twentysomething friends Nick (Hern\u00e1ndez), Hunter (Marshall) and Freshman (Patterson). When his latest campaign for a vodka brand gets dismissed as \u201ccringe\u201d by a colleague, threatening an upcoming promotion, Joe persuades Mason and his pals to invite him to join them, in the hopes of acquiring more intimate knowledge of a younger generation of consumers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe prospect of attending a raucous three-day party on South Beach comes as disappointing news to Joe\u2019s girlfriend Jennifer (<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/teyana-taylor\/\" id=\"auto-tag_teyana-taylor\" data-tag=\"teyana-taylor\">Teyana Taylor<\/a>), who\u2019s waiting for her own proposal. But even after renting a swagged-out Airbnb to ingratiate themselves with the group, Mason and especially Nick only reluctantly agree to let Joe join in on their activities. He fails early to win their confidence, but after they visit a yacht party, Joe is forced to consume cocaine, unleashing a Tony Montana-like alter ego whose flamboyant, destructive behavior runs them afoul of a mysterious drug lord convinced Joe is encroaching on his turf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWhether as a true generational touchstone or just a laugh-inducing diversion every few years, remaking \u201cThe Hangover\u201d in some capacity every few years is not just a welcome experience for a certain segment of the moviegoing audience, but probably a good business practice for studios. The problem with this idea, as \u201c72 Hours\u201d demonstrates, is that filmmakers feel the need to top their predecessors, or even themselves, with each attempt. As a consequence, it seems no longer possible tell the story of five guys having a couple of wild nights without introducing an escalating, even ridiculous series of events. (\u201cThe Hangover,\u201d of course, also includes a crime subplot, but notwithstanding its status as the kickstarter of this subgenre, Todd Phillips at least knew to mine it for laughs instead of serious thrills.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe premise here is actually pretty solid: what happens when a guy old enough to know better decides to participate in some young adult hijinks? Of course, Joe insists at one point that \u201c40 is the new 20,\u201d and culturally speaking that seems true these days, so maybe immaturity knows no age limit. Not to mention the fact that \u201cOld School\u201d tackled this concept successfully almost 25 years ago. But other than a handful of \u201cunc\u201d jokes and an unfortunate pre-gaming incident involving Pepto-Bismol, the movie elicits surprisingly little humor from the generational divide between Hart \u2014 who might be more convincing at 47, his actual age \u2014 and his younger counterparts. (That the bachelor and his friends are all around 30 further flattens the differences between them and Joe.) Instead, it\u2019s his wallet that proves most valuable, both to the characters and the screenwriters, lubricating luxury and access when the scrappy twentysomethings can\u2019t afford something.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn the meantime, the writers introduce Joe\u2019s attempt to unlock the secret lives of young adults for his advertising campaign (evoking ulterior-motive movies like \u201cHow to Lose a Guy in 10 Days\u201d and \u201c27 Dresses\u201d), a competing bachelorette party whose members are not what they seem (think Ilana Glazer in \u201cThe Night Before\u201d), and of course, the mysterious drug lord who inexplicably rents out his mansion to anyone with a credit card, but carelessly fails to lock up his valuables. The script aims to mirror some character dynamics from the peerless \u201cBridesmaids\u201d \u2014 in particular, the relationship between soon-to-be-married Mason and his stuck-in-the-past best friend Nick. But the film can\u2019t decide whether it wants to actually give its cast substantive material to explore or assault them with vomit, cocaine and whale sperm (!) as a way to ensure the audience\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWorking under the watchful eye of his \u201cRide Along\u201d director, Hart continues to maintain a likeable screen presence as the well-meaning but out-of-his-depth Joe, but doesn\u2019t do himself (or his wildly inconsistent filmography) any favors with this project. Much of Hart\u2019s appeal lies in his willingness to be the butt of the joke, and there are many here at his expense \u2014 thankfully not as many as usual targeting his diminutive stature. But what\u2019s missing from his performance (perhaps beginning with the writing) is the palpable life experience that lends him an advantage when his young friends run into trouble. Clearly, Joe made enough bad decisions in his earlier days to create \u2014 and survive \u2014 \u201cRicardo Montana\u201d as an alter ego, but as the film progresses, he seems less like an elder statesman than an old guy trying to live vicariously through his counterparts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThis is Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019 second movie role, and he seems poised to break out in the same way he did on \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d but even though he\u2019s funny, there\u2019s not enough of a character here for him to truly distinguish himself. Patterson, on the other hand, pops in a way he has seldom done on TV, and delivers a memorable performance as the group\u2019s resident idiot. Meanwhile, recent Oscar nominee Taylor beams in from another movie with a grounded performance that this one doesn\u2019t deserve. Additional supporting turns from other television stalwarts (\u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d alum Michael Mando, \u201cSeverance\u201d breakout Zach Cherry, \u201cVeep\u201d scene-stealer Kevin Dunn) hint at a better, less wacky odyssey left by the wayside.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tStory\u2019s body of work is not unlike Hart\u2019s, in that every pretty good movie he\u2019s made is significantly outnumbered by bad ones. His latest falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum: It isn\u2019t totally awful, but it strains to communicate how much fun the audience should be having instead of, well, just being fun. The irony of chasing \u201cThe Hangover\u201d is that even Phillips seemed nonplussed by its success, or perhaps even resentful; perhaps that\u2019s why he made a shameless copy with the second film and an antagonistic drama for the third. But not unlike a hangover itself, \u201c72 Hours\u201d is a movie that reminds you of the specter of the past; the problem is that it never delivers enough good times to make the painful aftermath worthwhile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great comedies are in short supply these days, but \u201c72 Hours\u201d offers a reminder that a crime subplot can quickly ruin even a potentially average one. Directed by Tim Story (\u201cBarbershop,\u201d \u201cRide Along\u201d) and written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (the \u201cHarold &amp; Kumar\u201d trilogy, \u201cAmerican Reunion\u201d), this latter-day \u201cHangover\u201d retread did not need&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MCDSEHO_ZX001.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}