The Out-Laws

“The Out-Laws” is a 2023 original Netflix comedy starring Adam Devine (Workaholics), Pierce Brosnan (Tomorrow Never Dies), Ellen Barkin (The Cobbler), Nina Dobrev (Love Hard), Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy), Richard Kind (Spin City), Lauren Lapkus (The Wrong Missy), and Lil Rel Howery (Uncle Drew).

A strait-laced bank manager (Devine) is excited when he finally gets the chance to meet his fiancé’s parents before their wedding. When his bank gets robbed, he has reason to believe his in-laws are the robbers. After his fiancé gets kidnapped due to old debts, he must now help his in-laws rob the top state of the art bank in order to get enough money to get his fiancé back.

The plot is outlandish with a lot of loopholes, and the comedy is dumb. Which the comedy part is to be expected with Devine. The juvenile dumb comedy is his thing, and he’s good at it. With all that said the movie accomplishes its job by being entertaining. It has several laugh out loud moments. Just don’t look too much into it and take the movie at face value. It’s just a lighthearted, funny movie. I give it a 7.5/10

Vacation Friends

‘Vacation Friends’ is a 2021 Hulu exclusive comedy starring John Cena (The Suicide Squad), Lil Rel Howery (Uncle Drew), Yvonne Orji (Insecure), Meredith Hagner (Search Party), and Robert Wisdom (Ray).

A straight laced couple (Howery, Orji) befriend a wild couple (Cena, Hagner) while vacationing in mexico. After a wild week of partying full of drugs and drinking, the straight laced couple thinks they’ll never see the wild couple again. Until the wild couple shows up announced to their wedding, and chaos seems to follow at every turn.

As I’ve said in previous reviews, I love John Cena, and Lil Rel. They are two of the funniest actors right now. ‘Uncle Drew’, and ‘Blockers’ are both hilarious, so I had high hopes watching this one. Maybe my hopes were too high, because this one is under whelming. The comedy seemed forced, and really wasn’t that funny. I hate to say it because I was really looking forward to this one, but it’s just okay and ultimately forgettable. I give it a 5/10.

Fatherhood

‘Fatherhood’ is currently the number one movie on Netflix starring Kevin Hart (Jumangi Welcome to the Jungle), Lil Rel Howery (Uncle Drew), Melody Hurd (Them), Anthony Carrigan (Gotham), Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave), DeWanda Wise (She’s Gotta Have It), and Paul Reiser (Mad About You).

‘Fatherhood’ is based off the true story of a father who raises his baby girl on his own after his wife dies shortly after child birth.

Netflix recently gave Kevin Hart the Adam Sandler deal, where they signed him to a series of movies for really big money. Smart move on Netflix, as Kevin Hart is one of the biggest comics in the game right now and I imagine highly sought after. This isn’t his typical role as he normally plays a goofy role, and this one is more serious, as he is playing a single father raising a daughter. He still adds his sense of humor and jokes making it not a total serious/dramatic movie. I liked the movie, it’s heartfelt, funny while touching at the same time. Kevin Hart plays a great role. My wife found it more sad than heartfelt, and cried through the majority of it, but she liked it as well. So whether you find it more funny and heartfelt like I did, or sad like she did, you’ll still enjoy it, and enjoy Hart’s performance. I give it a 6.5/10.

Bad Trip

‘Bad Trip’ is a 2021 comedy starring Eric Andre (The Eric Andre Show), Lil Rel Howery (Uncle Drew), Tiffany Haddish (Uncle Drew), and Michaela Conlin (Bones). ‘Bad Trip’ is a mix of a scripted movie and hidden camera pranks, think of ‘Impractical Jokers the Movie’. Two best friends, Bud (Lil Rel), and Chris (Andre) steal Bud’s sister’s (Haddish) car to take a road trip to New York city so Chris can try to win over his high school crush (Conlin.)

So we’ve seen movies like this before where they mix a scripted story in with actual hidden camera pranks. Again think of ‘Impractical Jokers the Movie’ and ‘Borat’, ‘Borat’ is pretty much the first movie to do this and then the others followed suit. I personally would prefer them do one or the other, either make it a script or just hidden camera pranks kind of like ‘Jackass’ did, but I give ‘Bad Trip’ this, they make it work. There are several laugh out loud moments in this film where I found myself cracking up. I’m personally a big fan of Tiffany Haddish, and Lil Rel, they’re both hilarious. Especially when they work together like in ‘Uncle Drew’. As equally hilarious as this movie is, it’s vulgar and crude. Sexual scenes, vulgarity, drug use, nudity, you name it, it’s probably in this movie, but that’s Eric Andre’s sense of humor. I don’t always like it, but he is a funny dude. So if you get offended easily, this movie is not for you, I give it a 8/10 though. It’s currently streaming on Netflix.

The Photograph

I typically break up my reviews in three parts, the synopsis of the movie, the cast, and lastly my thoughts on the movie. This time I’m just going to jump right in. ‘The Photograph’ has a great cast, Issa Rae (Little), Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You. Knives Out), Rob Morgan (Just Mercy.), and Lil Rel Howery (Get Out. Uncle Drew). So with such a great cast, it’s a shame this movie falls flat, and it falls hard. It feels about ten hours long, the plot is uninspiring, and doesn’t develop what so ever. Literally it’s watching a movie of nothing happening. When the film ended everyone in the theater just sat there in silence. An older man stood up and declared “I didn’t fall asleep”. Once we were walking out, we passed two women. The one turns to the other and said “Oh my God what was that.” I really wanted to like this movie. I’m a fan of Lil Rel, he is hilarious, and Lakeith Stanfield is a great actor. Unfortunately I’m going to have to give ‘The Photograph’ a hard pass. It is a terrible film and probably will go down as the worst movie of 2020. I’m giving it a 2/10.