NIGHT SCHOOL – A Review by Hollywood Hernandez
Night School is a new comedy directed by Malcolm D. Lee, who directed last summer's huge box office hit Girls Trip. Lee, who also directed the Best Man series, is known for his romantic comedies with a heart. In Night School, he teams up again with Tiffany Haddish and, with the addition of Kevin Hart, you have the perfect comedy with a heart. There are plenty of laughs with a few heart tugs mixed in.
In Night School, Hart plays a serious academic underachiever who quits high school and makes a very successful career for himself selling BBQ grills, that is, until he accidentally blows up his place of business while proposing to his supermodel-looking girlfriend. Without a high paying job he quickly goes from driving a Mercedes to riding the bus. He also finds himself unemployable without his high school diploma, so he goes back to his old high school and enrolls in night school classes to get his GED.
Haddish plays Carrie, the night school teacher, who's just teaching the class to make a few extra dollars for her living expenses but who really cares about her class of misfits achieving. The class, led by Hart, steals the test results to their first exam causing their teacher to threaten them with expulsion and giving them one last chance to commit themselves to learn. She also forces Hart to get tested and finds out he has some serious learning disabilities. She uses several methods to teach Hart to focus, such as kicking his butt in kickboxing classes.
The supporting cast features well-known character actors such as Rob Riggle and Romany Malco. The two play Hart's classmates and both have some serious issues in dealing with life and reality itself. They really keep the pace of the movie moving. The story doesn't end, at least not right away, with a happily ever after ending, but it is a comedic version of an inspirational tale about getting second and even third and fourth chances. I howled throughout the movie. I loved Night School.
The movie lasts 1 hour and 50 minutes and is rated PG-13 (I think it would have been a little funnier if it was rated R). On my "Hollywood Popcorn Scale" I rate Night School a JUMBO.
