Summary
6 tech score
Regina Hall and Kevin Hart in “About Last Night”; photo courtesy of Sony/Screen Gems.
“About Last Night” (Sony/Screen Gems)
Who would ever have thought about Kevin Hart as being an actor suited for a movie based on a David Mamet play! Well someone did and wisely so since he is the best thing about the remake of the Demi Moore/Rob Lowe starrer “About Last Night.” That movie was based on the Mamet play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago.”
The film follows the lives of two couples who live and love in the modern day world. Debbie (Joy Bryant) and Joan (Regina Hall) are roommates. Joan is dating Bernie (Hart) and so it is natural that Debbie gets introduced to Bernie’s best friend Danny (Michael Ealy). In short time both couples are seeing each other.
The story follows the progress of each of these couples as their relationships deepen. At the start of the film not a lot is show of their sexual activities but the characters talk about them and describe them for the audience ad infinitum. This allows for some comedy to enter the story and this is where Hall and especially Hart excel.
Hart is never afraid to take on the fact of how short he is; rather he uses it for joke after joke. Then when Hall’s character enters into the fray with short jokes of her own it all gets funnier. These two actors work well together. Hart brings out Hall’s inner comic and she throws caution to the wind and joins into the fun with full force and vigor.
Still it is Hart who makes the movie work. He is a dervish of activity and one liners. When he is on screen the movie comes alive. When he is off camera the pulse rate of the story slows down. He is fast becoming one of the best character actors in the business. Now we need to see him in a leading role and see if he can carry a film, rather than just support it.
Both Ealy and Bryant are good actors and their roles are the central ones of the story, but the camera is not drawn to them the way it is to Hart and Hall, Bryant’s role seems too much of a rehash of her character on the TV show “Parenthood” and Ealy just doesn’t seem comfortable in the skin of Danny.
The movie is rated R for profanity and endless sexual talk.
This version of “About Last Night” completely eradicates memories of the earlier version of the movie. Hart and Hall are tons of fun. Too bad they weren’t the focus of the film.
I scored “About Last Night” a morning after 6 out of 10.
