72 Hours, 2026.
Directed by Tim Story.
Starring Kevin Hart, Marcello Hernández, Teyana Taylor, Andy Garcia, Mason Gooding, Kam Patterson, Ben Marshall, Kevin Dunn, Zach Cherry, Michael Mando, Anna Garcia, Mike Epps, Katt Williams, Sophia Del Rio, and Hannah Masi.
SYNOPSIS:
A 40-year-old executive ends up at a three-day bachelor party with twenty-somethings after being mistakenly included in their chat group.
A surprisingly large chunk of director Tim Story’s 72 Hours involves Kevin Hart’s Joe Nixon switching to the accent of a Tony Montana knockoff upon snorting cocaine, and at times adopting other questionably insensitive voices. One of the young Generation Z men he is bachelor-partying with points out the obvious that this is racist and doesn’t fly in modern times. Joe and the movie (coming from a screenplay by Jon Hurwitz, Kevin Burrows, Hayden Schlossberg, and Matt Mider) seem to know this and don’t care. Personally, I wouldn’t care either if the movie actually bothered to be creative and funny about it. Instead, it’s just lazy; the exact type of comedy to be expected from Netflix.
Playing a vodka marketing executive optimistic about a promotion before being denied on the account that he doesn’t know how to cater to the youth or what they want, Joe goes undercover footing the Airbnb bill for the group of men he randomly got invited to a three-day bachelor party group chat alongside in a clandestine offer to up his advertising game. The logistics of this plot make zero sense (wouldn’t these guys already have a group chat they could use for bachelor party coordination and celebration?) Even if one can somehow get on the wavelength of how little sense this makes and how quickly the men allow a 40-something-year-old guy to join them in Miami where shenanigans reign, it’s just not funny. It’s the type of comedy filled with gross-out humor, such as Kevin Hart repeatedly vomiting over everyone in the back of private party transportation, or a set piece involving using whale penises.
There are also two other unnecessary plot elements that further drag down the comedy that already isn’t that funny, with the first being Joe’s trepidation about committing to marriage with his long-time girlfriend (Teyana Taylor, absolutely wasted in a nothing role), and the fact that the Airbnb he chooses is actually a front for drug-running. The latter frequently turns the film into a failure of action. Tim Story has succeeded at both comedy and action in the past, although his collaborations with Kevin Hart (Ride Along) typically bring out the worst of both. And yet I still long for a healthy theatrical landscape that values comedies where this would have been dumped in January like one of those movies, although that is neither here nor there.
One worthwhile aspect 72 Hours has going for it is its subversion of youth, as a group that values time spent together more than endlessly posting on social media. Of course, this makes it difficult for Joe to get the footage he needs for marketing materials, at least until his sleazy co-worker (Zach Cherry) sexually miserable in a loveless marriage, tells him that he packed with him an unethical recording device, something even creepier than glasses, in hopes that Joe could get some shots of naked women for him wherever the bachelor party goes.
The other juxtaposition is that Mason Gooding’s groom character is genuinely excited to get married, even if the leader of their group (Marcello Hernandez) seemingly hasn’t matured a day since 5th grade and is as juvenile as they come, vulgarly mocking him for being in love. The other two friends along for this chaos are a pushover repeatedly cheated on (Ben Marshall) who needs to work on his self-esteem and get out there talking to women again, and the obligatory dimwit who often takes every statement far too literally, here played by Kam Paterson, far and away the funniest part of the movie with some impeccable comedic timing.
There are a small handful of funny moments and dialogue here, and it is refreshing about seeing Kevin Hart in the role of someone ostensibly more mature trying to work others through problems and immature stages of their lives, but he is also playing the same type of character giving the same type of high-energy performance that quickly becomes grating. That’s especially true once the deeply unfunny Tony Montana riff impersonation takes over, as if the filmmakers believe they have stumbled into an undeniably funny bit.
Aside from being completely confused about what genre it wants to be, 72 Hours mistakes shock value and pushing uncomfort as comedy. Yes, that can be funny, but this is a film dialed up to eleven, trying too hard at every turn while also being entirely cliché. The film may take place over the course of 72 hours, but it also flails about 72% of the time
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
