Watch the new multigenerational party comedy “72 Hours” and you'll probably relate, age-wise, to either middle-aged Kevin Hart or his younger castmates, though it’s more sad than actually funny no matter how old you are.
Hart has plenty of talent to riff off of, including a trio of “Saturday Night Live” regulars led by Marcello Hernández, in “72 Hours” (★½ out of four; rated R; streaming July 24 on Netflix). But the A-list comedian's inherent charm and hyperactive affability is wasted in this mishmash of “The Hangover” and “Scarface” that way overcomplicates what should be a pretty fun dude movie.
Joe (Hart) is a 40-year-old ad man who’s in a creative rut. His pitches are just not connecting or hitting with Gen Z, and he has been issued an ultimatum:
Win the business of a vodka brand and get an executive promotion, or else be fired.
Weirdly, at the same time, Joe has been accidentally added to the group text of some GIF-tossing guys planning a bachelor party in Miami. Invited to their debaucherous three-day spree, Joe gets the idea that if he can get to know them, their interests and their habits, his work can benefit – even if it might tick off his ready-for-a-ring girlfriend, Jennifer (Teyana Taylor).
Though Joe is footing the bill for their swanky South Beach digs, he doesn’t gel with the guys. Mason is the groom-to-be who’s ready to hit the clubs but questioning this next step in his life. Nick (Hernández) is Mason’s lifelong BFF who’s not crazy about Mason getting married or cool about this older guy hanging around, though lovelorn Hunter (Ben Marshall) and flighty Freshman (Kam Patterson) don't mind Joe as much.
Joe uses a hidden camera in his necklace to capture this foursome in their element, yet from the start, he tries too hard to be one of their own. He can’t hang with their “emotional check-ins,” and it also doesn’t help when Joe chugs a couple of Pepto bottles (because he's "old," get it?) then upchucks it all over his new bros. It all somehow gets worse for them – and more cringe for us – from there as the group ticks off a local drug lord (Michael Mando) and gets on the bad side of a downright villainous bachelorette party who are barely in the movie but are legit the most entertaining personalities in it.
Directed by Tim Story (“Think Like a Man”), it’s a mess of a film that, on paper, shouldn’t be. The screenplay by “Cobra Kai” creators and “Harold & Kumar” writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg is tonally all over the place, whipping to and from broad comedy shenanigans and deep dude drama about marriage and commitment. Hernández and Marshall are a couple of “SNL” standouts, but they just don’t spark much hilarity here, though the expressive Patterson, their late-night sketch cohort, is one of the film’s few real highlights.
Hart does what he can, but it’s just not a lot to work with. The movie’s constant jokes about his height get old quick, as does his Al Pacino-in-“Scarface” routine. When Joe snorts cocaine, he becomes a faux Cuban gangster – the gag is sort of amusing the first time but becomes tired when it turns into a repeated plot point.
It's just one of many failed gags in “72 Hours,” a potentially clever and smart take on male friendships and next-gen technology that instead ruins its own party.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kevin Hart can't get the party started in '72 Hours' – Review
