There is very little Toronto in ‘The Man From Toronto’. There’s the iconic CN Tower, visible only in a distant shot of the dim skyline, and a few shots of a remote hideout somewhere on the outskirts of town, before our Canadian hitman (Woody Harrelson) is called off on a mission, and the action moves elsewhere – Minnesota, Puerto Rico, suburbs of Virginia.
Ironically, the movie was filmed almost entirely in Ontario, so Toronto, the capital, and Hamilton, Milton and Brampton, will often appear disguised as elsewhere. When Harrelson is chasing Teddy (Kevin Hart), a bumbling fitness buff caught up in a murder plot over an identity swap, they’re actually cruising under the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto—not through the streets of Washington D.C. No one in the cast even manages. to pronounce “Toronto” correctly.
“Geographic license is usually an alibi for laziness,” Thom Andersen once noted in his feature-length essay film “Los Angeles Plays Itself.” In “The Man From Toronto”, directed by Patrick Hughes, the vague sense of location is typical of a broader lack of effort. While Hart, as the generally comedic version of the classic Hitchcockian Wrong Man, has a certain goofball charm, his frenetic cowardly routine quickly grows old, with no noticeable change as the danger of an action movie continues to escalate. Harrelson, on the other hand, does little in the role of the imperturbable super-killer, playing the straight man for Hart’s over-the-top jester without much chemistry.
As the shoot-em-up carnage develops into a long one-take battle sequence at Teddy’s gym — reminiscent of the spectacular church battle in the 2014 movie “Kingsman: The Secret Service” with less panache — the general feeling is there. one of simply going through the motions. That’s a shame, isn’t it?
The man from Toronto
Rated PG-13 for foul language, comedy action, and some graphic violence. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
