“Saving the world takes a little Hart and a big Johnson.” That tagline tells you what Warner Bros. was selling in June 2016: a mismatched-buddy comedy built on the size gap between Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson. Central Intelligence delivers exactly that premise, and almost nothing else. Rawson Marshall Thurber directed and wrote the film with Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen. It runs 107 minutes. It made over $217 million worldwide against a $50 million budget, so the studio got what it paid for. The audience did not.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
Robbie Weirdicht and the Gymnasium
The movie opens in 1996 at Central High, where star athlete Calvin “The Golden Jet” Joyner is being honored at an assembly. Halfway through his speech, bullies led by Trevor Olson drag an obese nerd named Robbie Weirdicht out of the boys’ locker room shower and throw him naked into the gym. Robbie had been dancing to “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” on a radio. Everyone laughs except Calvin and his girlfriend, Maggie Johnson. Calvin covers Robbie with his varsity jacket. Robbie thanks him and flees.
That is the whole emotional engine of Central Intelligence. One act of decency in 1996, paid off twenty years later. It is a thin engine, and the film knows it.
Bob Stone and the Facebook Request
Twenty years on, Calvin is married to Maggie and working as a forensic accountant he does not like. She suggests therapy for a marriage that is coming apart. At work he gets a Facebook friend request from “Bob Stone,” who asks him to meet at a bar. Bob is Robbie, now muscular, fit and trained in hand-to-hand combat. After a bar fight and a tour of the old school, Bob asks Calvin to review some online transactions. Calvin finds a multimillion-dollar auction with bidders from radical countries, closing the next day.
The next morning CIA agents led by Pamela Harris arrive looking for Bob, who vanished after sleeping on Calvin’s couch. Harris says Bob is a rogue agent who murdered his partner, Phil Stanton, and intends to sell satellite codes to the highest bidder. Then Bob abducts Calvin and says he is trying to stop a criminal.
The Cast List Does the Heavy Lifting
Thurber assembled a supporting bench that most comedies would kill for, and then gave it almost nothing to do.
- Amy Ryan as Agent Pamela Harris, the CIA agent who suspects Bob
- Aaron Paul as Philip “Phil” Stanton, Bob’s partner, believed dead
- Jason Bateman as Trevor Olson, the grown-up bully
- Danielle Nicolet as Maggie Joyner, Calvin’s high school sweetheart and wife
- Thomas Kretschmann as the buyer who wants the satellite codes
- Kumail Nanjiani as Jared, an airport security guard
- Melissa McCarthy as Darla McGuchian, Robbie’s old crush, uncredited
Ryan gets a handful of scenes. Bateman gets a cameo. Paul’s character exists to be a plot twist. Nanjiani and McCarthy are pure decoration. This is a waste of a cast, not a use of one.
What the Two Leads Actually Do
| Element | Central Intelligence |
|---|---|
| Lead pairing | Kevin Hart as Calvin Joyner, Dwayne Johnson as Bob Stone |
| Comic engine | Size contrast, Johnson playing gentle, Hart playing frantic |
| Action | Bar fight, abduction, satellite-code auction |
| Setting | Central High, 1996; the present day |
| Runtime | 107 minutes |
The Johnson-Hart pairing is the reason the film grossed what it did, and the reason the reviews were mixed-to-positive. Critics praised the two performances and knocked the script. That split is correct. Johnson is genuinely funny playing a mountain of a man who is still, underneath, the humiliated kid from the gym. Hart does his usual thing at his usual volume, and it works when the script gives him a straight man to bounce off.
The Script Is the Problem
The screenplay never decides what it wants to be. It is a spy thriller with an auction and satellite codes, and it is a high school reunion comedy, and it is a marriage story about Calvin and Maggie, and it does not commit to any of them. The action beats are staged competently and mean nothing. The emotional beats are stated rather than earned.
Bob’s obsession with Sixteen Candles and Road House is a character detail that never pays off in a scene. It is a costume, not a trait.
The 1996 Scene Is the Only One That Sticks
The gymnasium sequence is the best thing in Central Intelligence. It is cruel in a way that feels real, and Calvin’s small kindness lands because the film does not underline it. Everything after that is a chase.
The film also premiered at the Regency Village Theater on June 10, 2016, and opened in the United States on June 17 through Warner Bros. Pictures, with Universal Pictures handling international markets. It found its audience. That audience got a serviceable comedy with two movie stars doing what they do.
5.2 of 10
Central Intelligence is not a bad night at the movies. It is a forgettable one. The premise is a single joke stretched across 107 minutes, and the supporting cast is a list of names rather than a set of characters. Johnson and Hart are worth watching. The movie around them is not. The $217 million gross says more about the stars than the script, and the mixed-to-positive reviews said the same thing at the time. Ten years from now, the gymnasium scene will be the only part anyone remembers.
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