Night School

• Sitting in a waiting room, clutching your jaw, trying not to think of the tooth that's rotting and will no doubt cost you €800 for a root canal
• Visiting your nearest retirement home to read stories to and chat to old folks.
• Pulling the wrong brake on your bike and losing a pound of skin when you scrape yourself across a gritty road at 20 mph.
• Walking around your local park with a plastic bag picking up after inconsiderate bastard dog owners.
• Taping your eyelids open and taking 3 sleeping tablets.
• Listening to an Ed Sheeran album on repeat.
• Volunteering to clean the grease trap at your nearest hotel, knowing that the cloying, nauseating smell will probably make you vomit.
• Walking barefoot into the men's toilets at any bus/train station.
• Going to the Democratic Republic of Congo with no sunblock or vaccinations.
• Drinking 14 pints of Guinness and then eating a Lamb Phaal from an Indian restaurant previously closed down by the Health & Safety authority, the night before a 500 mile road trip with no scheduled toilet stops.

10 things you could do with yourself instead of going to see Kevin Harte's new film Night School. Some of them are awful, a few of them are nice, all of them are better than going to see this piece of shit.

Teddy Walker (Kevin Hart) is a manipulative asshole who's living beyond his means in an effort to impress his fiance. His stupidity loses him his job and he can't get another because he didn't graduate from high school. To remedy this he begins to take night classes and realises his smooth talking ways cut no weight with Carrie (Tiffany Haddish), the woman in charge and to make it through he'll actually have to knuckle down and take things seriously. But he's an asshole.

I hated this film. It's billed as a comedy but it's appallingly unfunny and filled with deeply unlikable people. The lead character is one you'll want to see impaled on something sharp as fast as is humanly possible but when you realise this isn't going to happen you'll either (a) be smart and walk out or (b) be a fool like me and sit through it fighting the urge to claw your face off. All the best comedies make your care about the people onscreen. This one makes you wish they were all on fire. Director Malcolm D.Lee made this as a follow up to the very funny Girl's Trip and you get the sense something very heavy was dropped on his head in the interim*

*I apologise if this was the case.

None of it works. Gifted comedy actors like Mary Lynn Rajskub, Romany Malco & Rob Riggle as fellow classmates are so wasted and so hastily sketched that you won't care about any of them. Conversations frequently descend into terrible improv and then further into hissing and snarling and the camera just keeps rolling and rolling. Dreadful slapstick is mixed with moments that strive for emotional depth before failing massively. A prison brawl is even thrown into the mix for some bizarre reason. And for a 12 certificate film there's a surprising amount of talk about anal sex. For no reason other than to shock. But you'll just cringe instead and bargain with whatever higher being you believe in to just please make it all stop.

Kevin Hart is a terrible comedian. His continued success baffles me. He uses the same tired schtick in every film. A small angry man who's far louder than his wee stature should allow. I don't know who goes to see his films but somehow they keep making money. He's like an African American Adam Sandler, churning out the same broad, horrible films year after year to an army of fans who must hate themselves. Soon enough he'll have the same dead behind the eyes look as Sandler. Tiffany Haddish as Carrie tries her hardest but no one could make this material work not even a comic maestro like her. Material I must add that was written by 6 writers. 6. SIX. Six people brainstormed in a room and this is the best they could come up with. Pathetic comedy and paper thin characters and then a late attempt to add a touch of depth which becomes yet another punchline in an attempt to wring every last bit of humour out of proceedings. At this stage you'll despise yourself for staying.

This sucked. I'm so glad someone else paid for my ticket. If I'd paid I'd still be kicking a wall somewhere out in Castletroy. This year we got Games Night and Blockers, 2 films that reinvigorated the adult comedy genre so it's a dreadful shame that nothing has been learned from them and this kind of lazy excuse for a film gets churned out.

DO NOT GO TO SEE THIS.