Central Intelligence

Contrary to its title, Central Intelligence has no intelligence. The story isn’t clever. The action is neither interesting nor exciting. With Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson as the leads, you’d expect Hart to be annoying while Johnson plays it cool, but it’s just the opposite: Hart plays it straight (and isn’t funny), while Johnson hams it up as a unicorn-loving, fanny-pack wearing CIA agent (and isn’t funny).

The setup of co-writer and director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s (We’re the Millers) film is simple and also illogical: Calvin (Hart) was the guy everyone wanted to be in high school, and now, 20 years later, is a forensic accountant.

Importantly, he is and always has been a genuinely nice guy. Bob (Johnson) was overweight and bullied in high school, and now works for the CIA. Also importantly, he is now an insufferably annoying, clingy and manipulative liar. It’s as if Thurber and the other writers (Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen) sat in a room and said, “Hey, let’s have Hart play against type and not be annoying, and Johnson do the same and irritate the crap out of everyone.” Bad idea. Doesn’t work.

The plot: Bob works his way back into Calvin’s life because he needs Calvin’s accounting skills to figure out the meeting place of the buyer and seller of encrypted satellite codes. Complicating matters is CIA Agent Pam Harris (Amy Ryan), who thinks Bob is the seller and is trying to arrest him.

It’s never funny, but it is painful to see it clearly trying to be funny and not connecting. For example, Calvin talks about life with his wife (Danielle Nicolet), and you know he’s telling jokes to the best of his ability, but they’re just not landing. Like the sound of silence permeating the theater not landing. Why is it like this? It’s because the jokes are redundant.

Hart gets a few decent one-liners in throughout the movie, but many of the jokes lack creativity and inspiration. It might have aided the humor if we didn’t spend so much time feeling sorry for Calvin as big bully Bob (who repeatedly says he hates bullies) forces Calvin to risk his life.

You know who you should really feel sorry for though? The supporting cast. They were no doubt led to believe they’d be a small highlight in a film full of laughs, but they end up either lost (Ryan, Nicolet) or flailing lifelessly in a cameo (Aaron Paul, Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy). In the film business you have to trust others to make you look good; in Central Intelligence, nobody looks good.

Central Intelligence (1) Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber • Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Danielle Nicolet • Rated PG-13 • 144 min. • At Century Cinemas Del Monte, Century Marina, Maya Cinemas, Northridge Cinemas