You know, in the modern era, and by “modern,” I mean contemporary tribalist era, I am not sure if I should laugh at anything in the film here. I mean, like a lot of humor, the movie plays on types. Stereotypes? Archetypes? Abstractions of people acting in recognizable but exaggerated ways in different situations? That’s been at the root of humor for history, from the city slicker to the rural clown in Shakespeare. But they’re evil, and especially since the types in this film are of different tribes than mine (really, one meta-tribe), it might be evil if I am amused by the urban-anything-for-a-buck almost con man, the oversexed people, the always high guy, or the sassy thirty-something women. Surely if I made a joke playing off these types, I would be evil and blacklisted. The blacklist is the most inclusive space in the modern world, ainna?
At any rate, Kevin Hart wins a lawsuit against an airline with a $100 million verdict. He’s a serial entrepreneur with no luck so far, but he decides he’s going to start his own airline. With the help of his grifting cousin, he starts an airline. A token white family, headed by Tom Arnold, his pretty but annoying girlfriend(?), his daughter on her eighteenth birthday, and his younger son have their flight cancelled, so their airline books them on the next available flight–on Kevin Hart’s airline, where they can be stereotypical white people for the humor. It turns out that the pilot is Snoop Dogg, who might have exaggerated on his resume–he’s afraid of heights–and he’s high all the time. And Kevin Hart’s old flame happens to be on the plane.
So we have various set pieces and various tropes, including gags that vast numbers of people want to have sex with the newly eighteen year old; white women dig black men with large genitalia; young white people embrace the gangsta lifestyle and look silly when they do so; also, Snoop Dog does a lot of drugs. A bit raunchy, but what’s what you get in an unrated comedy from the 21st century. A few amusing bits, and the dramatic climax where Snoop Dogg dies from a drug overdose (which hardly glamorizes drug use, ainna?) and Kevin Hart has to land the plane and wins back his girl is a bit tacked on, but where else could it go?
So: Okay, I suppose, if you have to watch something. But not something I’m likely to watch over and over again, but I own it on DVD just in case.
