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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review / ‘Central Intelligence’ (M) **

central-intelligence-dwayne-johnson-kevin-hart-1200x800MUCH American movie and TV sitcom comedy is formulaic but, when you look behind its surface, not funny.

So give thanks to Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen for giving director Rawson Marshall Thurber a screenplay that looks formulaic squarely in the eye and says: “Go away. This time, we’re replacing ‘stupid’ with ‘silly’.”

“Stupid” chokes on overworked same-old, same-old dumb stylistic conventions. In “Central Intelligence”, “silly” delivers laughs by not trying to be smart. The result is a fun escapist actioner that tells us that, despite its limited logic, the filmmakers want us to laugh a lot. And we do.

In a style shift that reveals an unsuspected comic talent, Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) plays Bob Stone whom we first meet at high school graduation when he’s Robbie Wierdicht, obese, unloved, despised. Kevin Hart plays student Calvin who, at graduation, has walked away with every end-of-year award and is the only person in the building who shows Bob sympathy.

Twenty years later Calvin is an accountant married to his childhood sweetheart. And Bob has located him on Facebook. Bob’s now svelte, muscly and smart, all necessary qualifications for a high-level CIA field agent whom another part of the CIA, led by Harris (Amy Ryan), is pursuing for reasons so complex that you’ll have to take me on trust about their existence.

Yes, the film’s sublimely silly, packed with improbabilities that while simple in their delineation are clever enough in their execution to surprise us. It sends us out willing to believe that we’ve seen a smart lampoon, satire, parody, send-up of Hollywood actioners and many of America’s most cherished cultural institutions. You’ve gotta admire that.

At Hoyts, Capitol 6 and Dendy

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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