Kevin Hart's newest film Night School may be the paint-by-numbers film you'd expect, but with a heartwarming theme to accompany it, it can sometimes go above and beyond.
“When accidentally destroying his workplace gets successful salesman Teddy (Kevin Hart) fired, he can’t find another decent job unless he finally gets his GED. But two major things stand in his way: Carrie (Tiffany Haddish), a teacher with no time for grown-up class clowns, and Stewart (Taran Killam), Teddy’s high school nemesis-turned-principal who will do anything to see him fail. Now every school rule is about to be broken when they all go head-to-head in a wild battle of wits, pranks, and lessons you can’t learn in books. Night School is in session!”
Night School opens with Teddy still in high school sitting around the dinner table while his parents dote on his sister for scoring well on school exams. With Teddy nervous about the upcoming final exam, he tries to reach out to his parents for help, but his father quickly shuts him down telling him to study. During the exam the next day, Teddy struggles with reading the problems on the test and becoming instantly frustrated, creates a big scene in front of his class and storms out. Seventeen years later, everything Teddy said he’d succeed in he has. He drives a nice car, has a beautiful girl, Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke), and excels at his job as a salesman in a barbeque sales store. Things are looking up as the store owner tells Teddy he plans to turn over the store to him once he retires, and as celebration of the new chapter in his life he plans to propose to Lisa after dinner that night. With a beautiful setup in the barbeque store with candles everywhere, Teddy tells Lisa the news of his promotion and proposes, knocking loose a propane hose in the process. When Lisa accepts and rushes outside to call her friends, the store explodes, sending Teddy hurdling through a plate glass window and landing on top of his car windshield. Teddy’s boss takes the insurance money and cuts his losses, leaving Teddy without a job to keep up his lavish lifestyle that he believes is the only reason Lisa is staying with him.
Teddy turns to his friend Marvin (Ben Schwartz) who says he can get him a job at his sales firm if he gets his GED. Teddy tells him it’ll be a piece of cake, as he’ll charm whoever he needs to into giving him his GED at his old high school. However, when he returns to his former alma mater he learns that Stewart, his arch-nemesis in high school is now the principal and doesn’t want him attending the school and bring down its scores. Teddy attends regardless, trying to juggle a temp-job at a fast food restaurant, learning how to manipulate the night school teacher into passing him without doing the work, and lying to his now fiancée about where he is at night. All of this finally comes to a head and Teddy must make the decision to own up to his mistakes and work hard or risk losing everything.
Night School at its core has some very noble themes going for it, tackling a subject not really talked about in films, let alone comedies: learning disabilities and how it can affect undiagnosed adults later in life. Teddy has been successful in life getting by with his personality, something he honed specifically because of his disability in learning anything else. It’s never alluded to that anyone without a GED can’t succeed by any means, but does paint the hardships in getting a better paying job and for Teddy, a lot to do with his self-esteem. The film makes this highly relatable to anyone that may be in a similar situation and most of all highlights the care taken by teachers who really strive to guide their students in their journey to learn by any means. The night school class also portrays people in all walks of life who may be going back to get their GED. This diversity between their backgrounds does make for some great moments and funny sequences.
For the most part, however, Night School misses the mark in many ways. For as noble a theme as learning disabilities are, the rest of the film is mediocre at best. Strange sequences with Tiffany Haddish’s floating head yelling at Teddy while he’s doing everyday things like eating or searching the web are just absurd. Also, the caper they want to pull off and steal the midterm is painfully forced, with no real gain at all since this has nothing to do with the actual test to get their GED. For me, Kevin Hart is usually hit or miss. In Night School, he’s just average, not really bringing nothing new from what you’ve seen in all his other films. Tiffany Haddish I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed her role. Perhaps it was because she was portraying a teacher going to extreme lengths to helping her students learn in such unorthodox and clearly unrealistic ways. There are some great comedic actors that play secondary characters, mostly comprising of the night school class, but as funny as they are in other things, there wasn’t that spark of chemistry between them that the film sought after. Whether or not they were trying for a Breakfast Club type of vibe with their after-school heist, it certainly doesn’t come off as anything close.
Video
Night School is presented in 4k 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen 2.39:1. The transfer here is crystal clear, and being a comedy, there isn’t much in the way of unique cinematography that’s going to find a heightened benefit from the HDR as another genre might. That being said, the steady change of the background, taking place outside during the day, at night, with interior locations of both as well, all look great with those brilliant brights and deep darks the HDR affords. Color balance is done extremely well, which can easily be seen in almost every sequence that has some drastic different in color.
Audio
The audio is presented in DTS:X. This track sounds great for a comedy. You’re not going to get a full workout of the surrounds in this genre, but there is an explosion and some atmospheric sounds that do sound pretty incredible. Audio levels are balanced well, with dialogue sounding clear throughout.
Special Features
There are quite a few extras on this disc, including a theatrical and extended cut of the film. Here’s what you’re going to see:
- Alternate Opening
- Deleted Scenes
- Gag Reel
- Night School’s in Session!
- Who’s the Student? Who’s the Teacher?
- Prom Night Revisited
- Cap ‘N Gown ‘N Giggles
- Making of the Dance Battle
- Christian Chicken
- Game Over
- Extended Performance “El Sueno”
- Feature Commentary with Director Malcom D. Lee
Night School overall has some good laughs with a good message. If you’re expecting something different from a typical Kevin Hart film, you may want to look elsewhere, but for fans who want more of Kevin Hart will definitely get what they expect out of Night School.
