Kevin Hart has come so far since last summer, at least on screen. Circa June of 2021, he was adrift on a paternal sea in Netflix’s Fatherhood, which cast the embattled comedian as a suddenly single dad figuring out child-rearing in his own imperfect yet well-meaning way. One year later, and he’s got the Mr Mom thing down in Me Time, the latest and perhaps least dire of Hart’s low-floored streaming era. As put-upon house-husband Sonny Fisher, he does it all in a day’s work: whip up school lunches so clever and picturesque he can brag-post them to Instagram; co-direct his kids’ class talent show with a Fosse-esque iron fist; pop by a science classroom for a quick PTA presentation on the health benefits of getting plant-based milks in the cafeteria. He’s at peace with his dutiful beta-male status while high-powered architect Maya (Regina Hall) is off winning the bread – or so he says.
One ka-razy weekend with an old pal (Mark Wahlberg, set to “affable”) will reacquaint the neutered Sonny with the dormant “big dog” inside, showing him just how benumbed he’s become to life. And of course things will spin out of control, leaving him a changed man and viewers with a confused takeaway on the balance between family obligation and self-actualization. Just as the offspring-friendly primary-colored aesthetic that looks like a PG comedy can clash against the R-rated humor, the image of Hart as super-parent contradicts the evident longing for something else. This muddled, anxious perspective on manhood distracts from a respectable percentage of effective comedic bits courtesy of writer-director John Hamburg (of I Love You, Man fame and, more pertinently, Hart’s co-writer on 2017’s Night School). Invariably, the laughs are cut short by another idle thought about how strange it is that Hart can manage to come off as both sanctimonious and aggrieved at the same time.
Masculinity isn’t in such good shape around the school where Sonny volunteers, its bleakest representative being the hen-pecked Alan (Andrew Santino), a dirtbag who sneaks away from a family trip to Legoland in the dead of night and furtively snorts his child’s attention-deficit medication. On the other end, there’s the dashing Spanish-speaking philanthropist (Luis Gerardo Méndez) a little too interested in his work with Maya. Sonny’s meant to be the shining exemplar of how to do it right, but like American Beauty’s Lester Burnham, he’s inching toward a midlife crisis that’ll reconnect him to his base hunter-gatherer instincts. (Also like Lester Burnham, we know his life is supposed to be depressing because he’s been reduced to cranking it in the shower.) After exhausting the usual boys’-night-out fare of golf, meat and strippers, he takes up the long-estranged Huck on his invitation to a birthday party in hopes of turning back into the twentysomething who skydived right next to him.
The hijinks they share over the course of Huckchella, a desert blowout commemorating “the big four-four” that pivots into an all-nighter of tortoise triage and broken pinkies, crescendo into chaos that’ll threaten the foundations of Sonny’s home both literally and figuratively. Excretory gags notwithstanding, there’s a fair amount to be had along the way, from a welcome Seal cameo to a scene-stealing turn from Ilia Isorelýs Paulino as a down-for-anything driver. Hamburg elevates each scene with his understanding of how to state something commonplace in the funniest possible way; a criminal (Jimmy O Yang, money in the bank) looking to collect on a debt Huck owes him mocks the notion of a 44th birthday bash by deadpanning: “That’s not a milestone of any kind.”
The film would be in the general neighborhood of irresistible if not for the wonky mechanics of story and character that convey a conflicted impression of Hart’s onscreen persona. In some of the more self-aggrandizing moments, he’s a model father with the main flaw of caring too darn much, a standup guy who can’t act in self-interest for the first time without punitively disastrous results. But that faint hint of a persecution complex doesn’t square with the out-of-nowhere conclusion, which disposes of several narrative obstacles on its way to an unearned resolution that sees Sonny finally coming into his own by joining the workforce. This particular form of fulfillment does not quite play the same as it would if applied to a female character, in that it’s hard to root for a husband pushing his successful wife to pick up her slack on childcare and homemaking. An otherwise agreeable buddy romp asks too much in its glowing framing of its main character, a saintly everyman on whom we could all stand to take it a little easier. He’s doing his best, faint praise that the film doesn’t realize only damns.
Me Time is available on Netflix on 26 August
