Cen­tral Intelligence

Does an act of kind­ness by a fel­low human being leave a last­ing impres­sion on a vic­tim of bul­ly­ing? In Raw­son Mar­shall Thurber’s bud­dy com­e­dy, script­ed by Ike Bar­in­holtz and David Stassen, the answer appears to be yes. Films about the high school expe­ri­ence are often wrought with sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, angst and sim­ple solu­tions which is some­thing the screen­writ­ers are well aware of and play with. They ref­er­ence John Hugh­es’ Six­teen Can­dles through­out and paint some­thing of a bro­mance between the two pro­tag­o­nists with the geek and the jock not only learn­ing to love them­selves but also one anoth­er 20 years after graduating.

With a high school reunion loom­ing the pop­u­lar kid Calvin Joyn­er (Kevin Hart) who is now an accoun­tant starts to ques­tion his posi­tion in life. He’s mar­ried to suc­cess­ful busi­ness­woman Mag­gie (Danielle Nico­let) and earns a decent salary, but he can’t help feel­ing there’s some­thing miss­ing in his life. When Mag­gie sug­gests coun­selling he agrees only to get out of their first ses­sion by arrang­ing a meet­ing with the mys­te­ri­ous Bob Stone (Dwayne John­son), who accord­ing to his Face­book pro­file loves cin­na­mon pan­cakes and unicorns.

John­son turns in an impres­sive chameleon­ic per­for­mance as a CIA agent switch­ing between many guis­es includ­ing action man, goofy best friend and rela­tion­ship ther­a­pist with charm­ing ele­gance. At times Cen­tral Intel­li­gence has the man­ic ener­gy of a Richard Pryor/​Gene Wilder film with Hart exhibit­ing some fine com­ic tim­ing. It’s at its best when the two stars are bounc­ing snap­py one-lin­ers off one anoth­er but becomes less engag­ing the longer it goes on, as the film mad­ly leaps from one ran­dom set piece to the next. Though the action has oomph its appeal rapid­ly dissipates.

Amy Ryan appears as a straight talk­ing CIA oper­a­tive on the hunt for Stone who she claims has gone rogue. It’s a poised per­for­mance com­pa­ra­ble to Dan Aykroyd’s turn in Grosse Pointe Blank as she nego­ti­ates her terms and con­di­tions with the jit­tery Joyn­er. Jason Bate­man also turns up as a shrewd busi­ness­man akin to Bill Murray’s ruth­less TV exec­u­tive in Scrooged.

Despite its ​’80s high school allu­sions, Cen­tral Intel­li­gence frol­ics hap­pi­ly in the nos­tal­gia of the 1990s, rem­i­nisc­ing about Budweiser’s ​“Was­sup” adverts and fea­tur­ing a sound­track that opens with En Vogue’s ​‘My Lovin’ and plays Blur’s ​‘Song 2’ along to a vig­or­ous action sequence which sees the pair crash out of a sky­scraper in a mail cart. Though not quite as nar­ra­tive­ly sharp, it shares a sim­i­lar­ly enlight­ened sense of humour with the 21 Jump Street films.