Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Me Time’ on Netflix, In Which Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg Fart Around, Buddy Comedy Style

Netflix’s Me Time casts Mark Wahlberg as the latest co-star for Kevin Hart, who’s amassing buddy comedies like a squirrel stuffing a hole full of nuts for the winter. In recent years, Hart has palled up with Woody Harrelson (The Man from Toronto), Dwayne Johnson (Central Intelligence), Ice Cube (two Ride Alongs) and Will Ferrell (Get Hard) for goofball romps that were perfectly content being hit-and-miss mediocrities. (Funny, how Hart’s best work was Fatherhood, which he carried on his own. Hmm.) So will the Wahlberg pairing be the magic combo to put this Hart formula over the top, or is it just more cinematic farting around?

ME TIME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: MOAB, UTAH, 15 YEARS AGO. Sonny (Hart) is NOT going over that cliff. Even in a wingsuit. His best buddy Huck Dembo (Wahlberg) and their other pals can BASE jump into that oblivion, but Sonny ain’t gonna follow. Yes, his name is Huck Dembo, an even stupider name for a Mark Wahlberg character than Cade Yeager, Bob Lee Swagger or Dirk Diggler. Huck Dembo. No. No no no no no. No. Huck Dembo – you’ve already formed all kinds of pictures of the guy in your mind, and all of them are types you’d want to Hulk-toss into a fathomless crevasse. But we have to move on. We have to get past Huck Dembo, nine letters that could push a person over the edge. Which is where Sonny stands, remember, and of course he goes over it, when a big gust of wind makes the choice for him, and he screams and flails, plummeting in front of godawful greenscreen effects.

He survives, of course, because it’s the very first scene in the movie. In the PRESENT DAY, Sonny is happily married to Maya the Successful Architect (Regina Hall), and is a super-duper stay-at-home dad to Dash (Che Tafari) and Ava (Amentii Sledge). He makes the perfect school lunches, gets the kids and wife out the door and only manages to slip twice in shit left on the kitchen floor by their pet tortoise. It’s a good day. He fields a call from Huck Dembo, who invites Sonny to his 44th birthday party. Sonny hems and haws. All single-guy Huck does is party party party, and there’s no keeping up with or relating to that anymore. Sonny’s a bit culturally isolated, fixated on being PTA president, directing the school talent show and writing his kindergarten blog. He looks across the school dropoff zone and wonders if he’s becoming poor sad lonely Crossing Guard Lenore.

Even Maya thinks Sonny should enjoy some time to himself, so she throws the kids on a plane to her parents’ house and he gets out the lotion and porn and you know how this scene ends – no, not the logical conclusion of such things, but like you’d get in a predictable broad R-rated comedy. A few more goofy-ass scenes of Sonny being not entirely comfortable doing things for himself and by himself occur before the movie finally, finally brings back Huck Dembo to infuriate us, and he’s naked – but don’t get excited, because do you think Wahlberg would show his real, non-prosthetic junk on screen? This is only the beginning of the outright lunacy Huck Dembo brings to Sonny’s minivan life, because every Huck Dembo in the history of cinema has, without fail, been nothing but an agent of chaos.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Alas, Me Time is just as middling as all the aforementioned buddy-Hart comedy romps.

Performance Worth Watching: And as always, Hart is the best thing about these romps. He brings uptempo energy and an unerringly relatable, sympathetic component to these boilerplate roles. He shows enthusiasm where the writing lacks inspiration.

Memorable Dialogue: Some decontextualized words of encouragement from Huck Dembo to Sonny: “I know you’re upset about Maya, but when she sees the Honda Odyssey, she’s gonna fall back in love with you!”

Sex and Skin: A decent medium-shot eyeful of Mark Wahlberg’s bare ass.

Our Take: As ever, Hart is the great leveler, giving an enjoyable performance within the confines of a lackluster screenplay, resulting in a middling shrug of a comedy that inspires a few smirks before it ends and we never watch it again. This is a Mad Libs insta-screenplay: insert random wacky nonsense and pray for laughter. It’s down-to-the-bone formula. The Usual Crap can be just fine, if it’s frequently funny, but Me Time whiffs more than it hits.

Hart and Wahlberg indulge the boring guy/crazy guy dynamic and share two sentimental moments accompanied by delicately tinkled piano music. Supporting players steal a scene here and there (Tafari as the wannabe-standup comic son, Ilia Isorelys Paulino as a slightly unhinged cab driver). Writer/director John Hamburg (Why Him?, I Love You, Man) drums up marital conflict between Sonny and Maya via a goofy hipster rich-guy character who builds tortoise sanctuaries. Sonny gets attacked by a mountain lion. A musician who used to be more popular than they are now drops in for a surprise cameo. Sprinkle liberally with farts, barf and turtle feces. Drop a reference to another Netflix property, and be sure to mention that one specific name-brand manufacturer of coolers, twice. Rinse, stir, repeat and serve lukewarm.

Oh, and Huck Dembo should’ve been named something else. Like Hondo Bondo Clementine or Pitt Glampington. Something more realistic.

Our Call: Huck Dembo. Get. The F—. OUT. Of. Here. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.