Today’s movie review is for Fatherhood which is starring Kevin Hart. You may have watched the trailer and thought that you’d laugh a lot but you’re not going to do that with this film well.
We’re going to talk about it with no spoilers of course. A father brings up his baby girl as a single dad after the unexpected death of his wife who died a day after their daughter’s birth. This may sound like a spoiler but it’s the summary on IMDB.
It’s within the first two minutes of the movie which flashes back and forth between what is happening with her along with the Kevin Hart slowly realizing that he is going to have to do this by himself. He does have his mother, his mother-in-law, his father-in-law and all of his friends by his side even though the confidence of his friends is not quite there towards hart’s character.
This is based on a memoir called two kisses for Maddie, a memoir of loss and love which is based on a true story that’s heartbreaking in itself but it’s showcasing what this character of Matt has to go through to raise a child being a single father and this time you get to see the impatience and just aggressiveness of Matt who is also really caring, really passionate and he just wants to do this. Most importantly he believes he can do this and at times in this film it seems like he’s the only one that believes he can do this.
Characters in Fatherhood
We have Laurel Howery who plays Jordan one of his friends along with Anthony Kerrigan who plays Jordan. Alfree Woodard who plays Marion – the stepmother is absolutely outstanding. She’s so good in the movie, there was a hesitancy towards her character at first. She is in such an emotional state because of what happened. Not sure if she is as supportive as she needs to be and as we progress through the movie.
Plot
We’ll discuss about the story which slowly becomes better relationship at least. This film is all about showing matt go through all of these different things that a single father would have to go through but then the stress and the lacking of confidence that in certain situations and it’s all standard things like “Can I change a diaper”, “how do I deal with all of the crying”.
At one point he goes to a therapy session full of just mothers and they’re like what are you doing here and eventually he’s like listen “i can’t do this she won’t stop crying and what do I do”.
We would have liked to explore more about few of things that he gets himself into. This story highlights through things instead of actually spending a lot of time in one moment of time or one big event from his life. The biggest thing that we needed from this movie is that it just didn’t give, was matt’s job, his career, what exactly did he do? Why is there so much travel involved? What went into certain decisions that he made towards the end of the film?
It’s not something that is required to be explored to enjoy this movie but personally thought the writing wasn’t as strong in that regard and then just the fact that we’re skipping through moments and there is a time jump in this movie. At first, it was just a bit too quick and a little jarring. It compromised the pacing of the movie itself so this is not a fault towards anyone but the actual script itself.
Cast Review – Fatherhood
The performances and the supporting cast are going to be really good. Laurel is someone who we enjoy popping up in movies like this and obviously Alfre Woodard is really great. The question is can Kevin Hart handle this role.
My friend who thought this was going to be a pure comedy and for good reason a lot of people saw that trailer and they said oh it’s going to be another sticky Kevin Hart funny movie and not everyone loves Kevin Hart’s comedy. He’s slowly becoming one of those actors that just plays the same character now. We think he’s funny, we’re entertained by Kevin Hart. Most of us like his stand-ups but when it comes to playing a serious role, we didn’t know if he could do it.
There were times when we thought Kevin Hart could have gotten a bit more emotional at the beginning. Specifically there was an emotional punch that really hit everyone around him and it does hit him later on but the movie needed a bit more from him at that moment and he builds this relationship with his daughter which he did a good job.
We were genuinely impressed and it’s up to Kevin Hart to carry this movie on his shoulders if he’s not good the movie’s not good because he essentially is the movie.
We’ll talk about his daughter in just a second but Kevin Hart is genuinely solid in this film. He doesn’t go beyond that. He doesn’t give that Oscar-worthy performance that some people are going to wait for in this film but he shows some emotion. There’s a lot of range and that’s the most important part which is why we believe Kevin Hart did a good job.
Then, of course we have uh the older version of Maddie and that is melody heard and she was actually just in the Amazon prime series them now she pops up in this and we’ll tell you what this girl has a lot of charisma, a lot of charm and she was wonderful in this film so because you have two solid performances.
It’s all about that back and forth and that banter between the two- the father and his daughter showcasing those struggles what he has to go through.
Final Words: Review
They montage through a few things we wanted in terms of the struggle and you can understand why because they only have so much time to tell what they needed to tell. We also want to talk about the comedy really quick before we wrap this review up. People are going to be expecting comedy and there are comedic beats. Some of the humor didn’t quite work, some of it fell a bit flat which is surprising because of all of the comedic talent is a lot better.
This movie at least tries to pull on your heartstrings, it’s a lot better when it’s getting emotional and this is drama first comedy second. If it would have been comedy first, we would have loved it because of some poorly written jokes
Overall there is a bit of a nice balance towards the end of the film. Kevin Hart showcases a wide range of emotions as fatherhood does a nice job of pulling on heart strains. Putlocker team is going to 68 for Fatherhood. We got a compelling performance from heart really good supporting performances and your heart strings are tugged on absolutely in this film and it’s just sweet and it’s just in time for father’s day.