Recycling harms the comedic environment of 'Me Time'
Netflix
A comedy clearly has lots of great ideas when the first six minutes include a guy getting smacked in the face by birds and slipping on tortoise poop. Twice.
With “Me Time,” writer-director John Hamburg blends his own script for “I Love You, Man” with “Hall Pass” and throws in the character Kevin Hart just played in “The Man From Toronto”—and winds up with something you may step in if you have a pet tortoise.
Underneath the desperate, labored attempt to get a laugh—really not great when you wish a movie like this would stop trying to be funny and try harder with its characters—is a fine premise: The problem that comes from an identity carved around only one thing. Stay-at-home dad Sonny (Kevin Hart) devotes every moment to his kids, with all of the instantly stale moments of emasculation that you’d expect to find here. His wife, Maya (Regina Hall, who shouldn’t have to do roles like this anymore), works all the time, leaving her feeling disconnected from her two kids and, yes, cue the rich, handsome guy (Luis Gerardo Mendez) who makes Sonny feel even more uncertain about his place in the world than he already does. Hamburg is exploring not just if this couple can communicate better about their individual needs and fears but what sort of balance can work for anyone as they juggle the personal and professional—and Sonny gets a week off to reinvest in who he is beyond fatherhood. It’s not unique or deep or anything, but it’s something.
Unfortunately the filmmaker has done this almost as a lazy, unofficial sequel to the far superior “I Love You, Man,” stealing his own bits about an unsanctioned use of funds and throwing up all over the place while creating a character in Sonny’s best friend Huck (Mark Wahlberg) that feels like an older version of Jason Segel’s easygoing bachelor in the previous film. (Turns out that in between these movies Hamburg also wrote and directed “Why Him?” which neither I nor you nor anyone has seen.) “Me Time” never gets a handle on Huck, just like “I Love You Man,” never got a handle on Sydney, and it prevents Wahlberg from being the comic asset he has been so many times. (“The Other Guys,” “Boogie Nights,” “Date Night” to name just three.)
Similarly, nothing is attempted or uncovered about the challenge facing longtime friends whose lifestyles have driven them apart. “Me Time” settles for mediocre, harmless-ish blather (while including a very far-fetched scene with a famous singer I do not believe is as beloved as portrayed here), with a couple laughs and a general sense that everyone signed on knowing this was almost, maybe, at best a two-star hang. Safe to say many who stream it will likewise get what they expected.
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