By: Allison Upchurch, Staff Reporter
Are you in a movie slump after the big summer blockbuster releases? Tired of seeing remakes and sequels dominate the movie industry? Looking for a movie to take a chance on to kill time on a Saturday afternoon? The movie Night School might be the one to check out.
Night School is the story about Teddy Walker (played by Kevin Hart), a high school dropout who gets the chance to better his life by going to work as a financial analyst at his best friend’s work place. However, to get the job Teddy needs to get his GED, so he starts to attend night classes at his former high school under the insistent and unconventional educator Carrie (played by Tiffany Haddish). Along with a slew of other personalities, Teddy fights with his innate desire to take the easy way out with the expectation to sit and learn the material in a valuable way.
This movie can be slightly over the top at some points and is conscious about how unrealistic some situations can be. While the storyline involving Teddy’s hardship about going through night classes is justified as a plethora of learning disabilities, all the other situations that come about in this movie are purely there to push the laughing pulse of an audience member. For example, the movie shows Teddy accidently setting fire to a store, sending him flying through the air smashing into a car but is then seen in the next scene unscarred by the experience.
Visually, Night School is a crisp film, where the camera is simply put on the actor’s face when he or she is talking and lets the comedic actions of the film be clearly seen without any shaky camera or zoom-in effects. In this age where action and adventure movies are king, Night School lets audiences slow down and just laugh at the circumstances and sharp dialogue that may flip expectations at points.
In connecting this movie back to one of the Jesuit values that are implemented here at Regis, the best one that could connect to Night School would be “magis.” Since “magis” is the understanding that there is always something more to strive for, Night School hounds in the message that there are more things to define and express yourself which lends itself to following through on the “more” that comes with achieving life goals. While Teddy tries to find the easy way out, he learns that by fulfilling the “more” that comes with education, he is able to form stronger relationships with his peers so he can shatter the expectations that he has been dealing with his entire life.