Me Time

Grade: C-

While watching Me Time (a new Netflix Original movie), I wondered if the writer lived alone under a rock on Jupiter, having – at best – only a vague idea how real-life human Earthlings think, talk, act, and feel. I had to look them up. When I saw Little Fockers and the Zoolander films in writer/director John Hamburg’s credits, I thought “That makes sense. Say no more.” He also wrote Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers – two films I enjoyed. While credibility was stretched at times, I could at least appreciate, recognize, and respect the intention of them being an exaggerated, nightmarish, Murphy’s Law situation for poor Gaylord Focker.

There’s a fun, heartwarming, viable storyline somewhere deep within Me Time, but it’s buried under pounds and pounds of lame, dramatic, cheap, sitcommy bombast. The characters are over-the-top cartoonish grotesque caricatures. We can’t get to know them. It’s a frenetic, busy plot. Is there a cinematic equivalent of a sugar/caffeine high? It made me think of those 25 ounce cans of Bud Light Lime refreshers. The last time I drank one was in 2015, and I don’t care to have one ever again. I didn’t like the way they made me feel – much like this film. When trying to describe this insufferable affair, I can most closely compare it to The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, or any Adam Sandler comedy from the 90s.

Kevin Hart stars as Sonny – a former office-number-cruncher and aspiring musician who quit the day job to be a stay-at-home dad to his two children. He is amazing at it. The kids love him. That is his life, and he’s happy with that being his life. His wife Maya (Regina Hall) wants Sonny to step outside of his box and have some time to himself – where he can do what HE wants, rather than cater to a little person all the time. She convinces him to join his childhood best friend Huck (Mark Wahlberg) on his 44th birthday party over spring break, while Maya and the kids to go her parents’ place for the week.

Huck and what looks like 20-30 of his friends/co-workers board a Greyhound-sized bus – decked out with his picture plastered all over the outside, with captions advertising that it’s his big 44 and encouraging people to honk for Huck, and “let’s get Hucked up.” Their destination is a remote desert place, where they have their own private Burning Man week. It is the most elaborate set piece of a birthday party I have ever seen. Anybody could have one, with this kind of technical wherewithal and studio money pumped into it. As they dance and drink, all I could do was wonder who built all this, and think about how fun it must have been to film.

Me Time exists in the kind of world where one man would likely be pressing major burglary/vandalism charges on another, but instead are great friends by the end after one conversation. An Uber driver immediately blows off her entire schedule to become a bestie and co-conspirator. Motivations and narrative through-lines change on a dime. Hart’s parents-in-law seem to simultaneously be his friend and rival. Nauseatingly colorful supporting characters are introduced early on, so they can be used as background ensemble extras in every later scene – showing up with a witty one-liner; usually a callback to something they said earlier. Seal is a good sport, playing himself in a glorified cameo. Don’t get me started on the absolutely preposterous climactic scene at the school, where not a single moment rings true. It whipped me into an angry frenzy of dislike with each passing dumb, lame, unbelievable moment. I don’t think any part of it could happen in real life the way it does here. Crazy, Stupid, Love. – a film from 2011 – has a similar climax, but I would rate that movie favorably. Its few flights of fancy were aberrations, and it was a movie with a good heart that contained characters grounded in reality.

Watching Me Time, I admit I laughed – maybe 3 or 4 times. But how worth it were those laughs? The screenplay seems to have been an afterthought; written around the jokes put in there first, in the most contrived ways. Almost all of the punchlines were dreadfully predictable. I’m all for a silly road trip bro comedy, but give me something at least resembling credible, with comedy that arises organically.

I didn’t enjoy this film very much.

Grade: C-