Central Intelligence
Director: James Wan
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Danielle Nicolet, Amy Ryan
Duration: 107 mins
Class: 12A
KRS Film Releasing Ltd
The ‘buddy movie’ or its close cousin the ‘buddy cop movie’ is a trope that of late has become a tad hackneyed, and the arrival of Central Intelligence did not admittedly inspire much confidence that it would break the mould. Still, its tag line “saving the world takes a little Hart and a big Johnson” is really quite inspired.
The movie sold by that tag line is slightly less inspired, yet surprisingly fun, fuelled by the undoubtedly strong chemistry between the afore-mentioned Hart (Kevin) and Johnson (Dwayne), an unlikely pairing – the basis of any buddy movie – that actually works.
The action starts in a high school locker room where a rather scary-looking, younger and much fatter (and with very strange hair) CGI’d version of Johnson’s Bob Stone is subjected to some terrible bullying. In the meantime, in the school gym Hart’s Calvin (also a younger version of the actor but certainly hipper than Bob) is being feted as a star student and athlete with the promise of many good things to come.
Fast forward 20 years and Calvin, although contentedly married to his high school sweetheart, is an accountant bored of his job, while Bob has shed the hair (thankfully) and the body fat and replaced the latter with rock-hard muscle. He has become a CIA agent, who returns to town ostensibly for their 20th anniversary high school reunion but ultimately to secure Calvin’s help in finding the buyer of some top secret US satellite codes.
When Bob’s CIA bosses turn up on Calvin’s doorstep declaring that Bob is in fact a rogue agent, Calvin finds himself embroiled in some espionage he can’t handle … all the while his wife expects him to attend marriage counselling sessions which she thinks will help him get out of his funk.
The whole would have been so much slicker and funnier had it been served by a better script
Johnson has never had a problem sending up his macho image, and although he is at his action hero best here, there’s much humour to be mined from his character – an overeager, optimistic, sunny man, who wears t-shirts with cartoon unicorns on them, denim cut-offs and a fanny pack. He’s also a fan of John Hughes’ movies, especially Sixteen Candles… Yet Johnson makes it work as does Hart.
Atypically the straight foil here, Calvin is a conservative, quiet and hapless man hurtled from the safety of his office into a world of crazy car chases, volatile gunplay and double crosses. Although he often is slightly hysterical over his predicament, he never gives in to his usual mugging, coming across as unusually sympathetic and genuinely funny.
The two actors play remarkably well off one another, the banter between them coming thick and fast. The visual gags highlighting the huge difference in their respective physiques really work. And, strangely for a film that serves huge dollops of action – some of it rather brutal – it has at its heart a message of tolerance and anti-bullying that shines thorough with minimal schmaltz.
The whole would have been so much slicker and funnier had it been served by a better script that exploited the differences between the two actors to better effect. As it is, the humour relies too hard on their differing personality traits and it is thanks to their presence that the whole coasts along so amiably. Moreover, the plot itself is fairly thin, and suffers too much from predictability, with the identity of the real villain telegraphed a mile off.
The supporting cast fares fairly well, with Amy Ryan’s tough-as-nails CIA agent Harris, Bob’s former boss and Jason Bateman as a smarmy ex-classmate of theirs, while a beloved comedy stalwart makes a sweet cameo in the film’s denouement.