Film Review: The Man from Toronto (2022)

The Man from Toronto (2022)

Columbia Pictures, Bron Creative, Escape Artists

Netflix

Release date

June 24, 2022

#whatonwhatsgood Express Review (by: Jovin Tardif)

The Man From Toronto is a decent action flick.  I must say Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson work very well together in this action-comedy film.

Basically in this movie, you have a case of mistaken identity. Let's just say that Teddy Jackson (Kevin Hart), an out of work gym membership salesman, walked into the wrong room and now everyone thinks he is the world’s deadliest killer,  “The Man from Toronto”. (MFT) 

What will happen when "The Man from Toronto" (Woody Harrelson) meets Teddy?   

The other cast members (Kaley Cuoco, Jasmine Mathews, Lela Loren, Pierson Fode, Jencarlos Canela, and Ellen Barkin) really add some excitement to the storyline.  

Let's hope Hart and Harrelson can team up again on another adventure.

Directed by

Patrick Hughes

Screenplay by

Robbie Fox and Chris Bremner

Story by

Robbie Fox and Jason Blumenthal

Produced by

Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and Steve Tisch

Starring

Kevin Hart as Teddy

Woody Harrelson as The "Man from Toronto"

Kaley Cuoco as Anne

Ellen Barkin

Jasmine Mathews as Lori

Lela Loren

Pierson Fodé as The "Man from Miami"

Jencarlos Canela

Tomohisa Yamashita as The "Man from Tokyo"

Kate Drummond

Cinematography

Rob Hardy

Edited by

Craig Alpert

Music by

Ramin Djawadi

The cast and others discuss The Man From Toronto

Producer Jason Blumenthal discusses the idea for the script 

“I did give birth to this story ... which started on Thanksgiving about four years ago. It was on the day my wife and I traveled from Los Angeles to Denver, Colorado, and we were meeting the rest of her family. Although I love them, I didn’t necessarily want to stay in their homes, so I rented an Airbnb for all of us.

In Denver, we arrived at our Airbnb and it was a side-by-side duplex, a beautiful modern farmhouse with a door on the left and a door on the right, and identical for every reason to believe that there were two different units inside. We showed up, the cousins showed up, the brothers showed up, and we’d been there for about an hour ... And we started looking at our watches and wondered, ‘Where are [my in-laws] Kent and Lyla?’”

“We ran out of the house to the entrance next door and realized that Kent and Lyla had been unpacking their car. They were just talking and so excited to be there that they weren’t really paying attention as they were unloading. The next door was open, and they had stumbled in and dropped off all their stuff.  When they looked up, they saw an entirely different family sitting in the living room who were not us, and Lyla had a moment of ‘what is happening?’ We ran in. We had the best laugh ever. We hung out with the other family. We couldn’t believe it. It was one of those moments– wrong place, wrong time–that we laughed about for the rest of the week”

“At the time, I happened to be in pre-production on a movie called The Upside with Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston. From Colorado, I was flying back to Philadelphia where we were about to start principal photography, and on that plane ride home, I thought, ‘can you imagine if Kent and Lyla walked into the wrong Airbnb and something else was happening, something they shouldn’t see, something nobody should?’ And then I thought, what if it was Kevin. And then I knew I had gold.” 

“I walked into Kevin’s trailer and said, ‘I don’t know when, but it’s going to be soon. I’m going to hand you a script and you’re going to say yes because I think we have something really big here, and it’s an opportunity for you to go to that next level,’ because I knew Kevin wanted to be in an action movie.”

Kevin Hart discusses the script and working with Woody Harrelson

“I wasn’t sure what to make of that but, I trust Jason, so I was excited to see what he came up with” 

“I pitched him. We talked. We beat out ideas. We outlined” 

“I read it and was knocked out.  It was exactly what I was looking for: action, explosions, comedy, everything.”

“Working with Woody was a dream. He’s just so chill and easy to get along with and so much fun to play off of whether it’s a crazy fight scene or something more emotional. We found that we really liked working with each other.”

Woody Harrelson discusses working with Kevin Hart 

“I think he’s just a tremendous talent, unbelievably funny, and just amazing energy all around." 

“So, I was very excited at that prospect, and I thought the script was very good, very funny. It never bores you; It keeps pushing right to the end.”

“I mean this is one of my most difficult roles because it’s so hard to not laugh. And as soon as I’d break up, of course, you have Patrick yelling, ‘come on, keep it stone-faced!’

Ellen Barkin discusses The Man From Toronto

“Well, I would actually have to say that I did this because of my very old friend, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Hart, and the fact that the script just seemed like so much fun to me that I said, why not?” 

Kaley Cuoco working with Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson

“I got to work with Kevin Hart again and Woody Harrelson. I would have paid to be on a set like this. I would have done one line. I just had an absolute blast. I get to sit there and have Kevin entertain me for hours on end; there’s pretty much nothing like it.”

“When Anne meets the mysterious man, MFT, she is instantly smitten” 

“And I don’t think she thinks twice. If she wants you, she’s going to go for you. So this big scary man walks in, and you’d think most women would be intimidated by someone like that, but Anne did not care. she was, like, you, me, let’s go. And I think it disarms Woody’s character, which is really cute. And we have a fun scene together that I think surprises him, and it’s very charming. It was really fun to play.”

Director Patrick Hughes discusses The Man from Toronto

“In terms of the visual storytelling we tried to find those private moments where it's Kevin and the audience alone, so everybody in that scene doesn't see him freaking out. We designed these shots to allow him a sense of his choreography, to reveal his true inner child, which is absolutely freaking out. A classic example is the scene with the knives, where we realized, if we had him drop the knife, then he could go under the table and be freaking out while he is under the table, but then he pops back up and he's full of bravado. To me, that was just so funny and it's really fun to watch on screen.”