A failed forty-year-old, a hitman and a contract to carry out. If we were to use a few words to describe The Man From Toronto, these would be the most appropriate of the many that we could choose. We know, however, that we cannot limit ourselves to little when it comes to a film that wants to tell a story and do it with maturity, going well beyond the classicisms of the comic and adventure genre, when the desire to experiment is so irrepressible that it goes beyond the screen.
Let’s cut the bull’s head right away, for starters: if you loved the Kingsman trilogy, The Man from Toronto it might make you remember it right from the start, because it begins immediately between fire and flames, not getting lost in too many frills. On the other hand, we could not expect anything else from his director, Patrick Hughesknown in Hollywood for “How I Kill Your Bodyguard”, his best-known production, where Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson joined forces to propose a comic and unconventional film.
The Man from Torontoproduced by Netflix and written by Jason Blumenthal and Robbie Fox, joins the already excellent catalog of the US company, thickening the selection of comedy and action films giving some fresh air after the misstep made with Interceptor a few days does.
“I’m the man from Toronto”
This will be the phrase you will hear most often once you click on “Play” and you will be comfortable on the sofa eating chips and gulping down Coke. But who is the man from Toronto? Simply a hitman in the pay of a mysterious woman named Deborah, (Ellen Barkin), a rich and merciless business woman. Known as Randy and played for the occasion by Woody Harrelson (Planet of the Apes And Now You See Me), the Toronto man is a name known to organized crime, politics and anyone who needs to make someone disappear.
He is an unscrupulous man, a shady individual, dressed in black and who uses several knives to kill his targets. In addition, he is armed with two pistols, machine guns and hand grenades galore for special occasions and is a fan of vintage cars. It’s someone we don’t want to piss off, because he is also an expert in the various martial fights, of which he is a great lover. And in order not to miss anything, as if it weren’t enough, he also has a bad temper, but it is inevitable for a ruthless killer.
At its antipodes there is Teddy Nilson (Kevin Hart), a loser with a dream of becoming an entertainment business man, who lives for the day in a shop and dreams of marrying his beloved Ruth (Jasmine Matthews). Unlike Randy, Teddy is irresponsible, inadequate, incompetent and has the talent of always being in the wrong place at the wrong timeangering anyone and getting into trouble in the most unimaginable ways possible.
Without making too many spoilers that could ruin your vision, the two protagonists of the events of The Man from Toronto they have been carefully written with their dramas and fears to make sense of their most obvious particularities. But how do they find themselves collaborating? Due to a misunderstandingche obviously can happen to everyone: At bottom, who has never been in an unexpected situation?
It is precisely on this that the entire tale of The Man of Toronto bases his narrative, with Randy behind the scenes as a perfect puppeteer while Teddy becomes a stunt double of the Toronto man, impersonating him and taking his place for much of the film to fool some shady dudes ready to detonate a bomb and with it a war. Just know that the story of The Man from Toronto is not all that different from the others we have approached over the last few months, yet he stages with conviction a story full of details capable of leaving its mark.
There is always a world to save, mind you, but the reality we are talking about concerns both Randy and Teddy, both at the center of the story from beginning to end because they are involved in a succession of events that would be unmanageable for anyone. . The real danger is not so much the crisis that could break out with yet another useless war between two countries, but their internal conflicts, highlighted by a relationship that evolves like the events that directly involve them.
While Randy is a troubled, sad and sometimes creepy character, on the other hand Teddy is thoughtful and proves much more than the incompetent we thought at the beginning. The camera is in fact aimed at them, because they represent two opposite and different worlds at the base from each other: there is the security of one’s own meansthat distinguishes Randy, and the fear of looking in the mirror at the end of the day, a typical trait of Teddy and his way of doing. One faces life with a knife between his teeth, the other by producing questionable YouTube videos, such as his fictional boxing in which no one hits the opponent and where no form of violence is expected.
The Man from Toronto is not your classic American comedy
The Man from Toronto, let’s face it, makes you laugh out loud and knows how to tell a story with maturity. The ironic moments, however, are not pulled to the bone and the jokes, always fitting and apt, give you goliardic moments, that blend with the scenes we see on screen in a satisfactory way.
It is a story that takes its time to come out, not going too long, not disdaining the classic reflective moments that distinguish American productions. The Man from Toronto shows a narrative evolution more concentrated on the protagonists and their stories than on the rest of the story, which passes through the entire second part of the film in the background compared to its initial ideathat is to put Teddy and Randy on the same level, with their objective differences and their thoughts as winning formulas to create an even more enjoyable story.
Unlike many other action comedies, where the latter takes the reins, The Man from Toronto plays with the protagonists and their feelings, leading the viewer to become attached to both. This is obviously both thanks to Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson, who proved to be very skilled actors once again proving a masterful performance. The story does not only stage cruel and violent fights, with adrenaline-filled scenes on a razor’s edge, and is not satisfied with little, on the contrary: the direction was able to offer a comedy rich in nuanceschanging the cards on the table and defining the characters in a convincing way.
Not for nothing, it is their writing that convinced us: even if Randy for most of the time he prefers to wear the shoes of the tough in the end he has a heart, and although Teddy makes us believe that he is the laughing stock of the situation he is instead a protagonist with the controfiocchi: matures as soon as she realizes that it is impossible to remain fixated on a pipe dream that is leading nowhere.
The Man from Toronto talks about two stories merging them into one, showcasing a tale of redemption involving both Randy and Teddy. It is the story of the least, of those who do not make it but, by engaging and winning, they become better people by remembering to be simple and capable of being able to live far from their own mental constructions. It is the proof, yet another, that sometimes you can dream big and that it takes very little to be happy, recognizing a friend even where you do not expect it.
From the United States to Puerto Rico …
If the compelling narrative and well-written protagonists weren’t enough to give you further confirmation of the good found within The Man from Toronto, Patrick Hughes also carefully took care of the choice of environments, proposing unmissable and impactful views. In this sense, we were impressed with the enclosed spaceswhere the camera has focused on even the smallest details, including those we did not think might have any significance.
When she moved to open environments it was even better: immersed as we were in the story, thanks to the special effects in the action scenes that were right and never redundant, we were struck by the visual quality of the burning cars, the streets covered with corpses and the environmental damage that a simple machine was capable of doing. From city to highway, our protagonists have passed on a plane to get over skyscrapers, fleeing from someone on the Puerto Rican streets and into a bar to hide from a dangerous enemy called the Miami man. That’s right, yeah, did you think the Toronto man was the only hitman around the world? There is also one in Tokyo, and it’s not friendly at all!
The Man From Toronto it is a story of redemption like many others which however offers protagonists with whom it is impossible not to create empathy, written and structured in a careful and painstaking way to remind us of a second and third vision. It’s an easy-to-understand and accessible tale, with excellent evidence from the dynamic duo of Woody Harrelson and Kevin Hart, as well as the good directing work done by Patrick Hughes. Like every story it also has a moral, the most beautiful of all: it’s not the past that defines who you are, but your present. And the present, as it is inevitable, is changeable and unpredictable. Like life.
