Four movies to watch if you loved ’72 Hours’
Every person reaches that age where they’ve got to admit the party has moved on without them. Only Kevin Hart in 72 Hours clearly never got that message. Oh, what a catastrophe! Instead, he takes a battered ego and one stag-do invite as proof he has still it. As if.
Hart Hart plays the man right in the middle of it. He tags along because he wants to prove he can still keep up, but you clearly know he’s got no chance. The whole weekend gets out of hand; the celebration turns into serious trouble. Before you know it, he is trying to protect the life he’s spent years building.
Most of the comedy comes from the gap between how capable he thinks he is and how badly he actually handles everything. He reckons he has got it boxed off. He hasn’t. Not even close. And the title? That’s the three days over which the whole disastrous carry-on unfolds.
So, if watching an ordinary man get dragged into one ridiculous situation after another is your thing, these next films should be right up your street. Every one of them starts with a simple plan, then before you can say Jack Robinson, it’s an absolute madhouse.
Four movies to watch if you loved ’72 Hours’
Me Time (John Hamburg, 2022)
Do you know that confidence you get when the kids are away and the house is finally silent? You start thinking you are free again. Well, Sonny does exactly that. He has become so wrapped up in being a husband and father that he no longer knows what he wants for himself. When his family goes away, he reconnects with Huck, an old friend who still lives life like a carefree bachelor. Sonny joins him for a birthday trip and soon finds that this reunion is more demanding than it should be.
The film follows Sonny getting dragged deeper into Huck’s world and realising just how far apart they have grown. Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg make that contrast so funny. That’s why Me Time is the perfect watch after 72 Hours. Both Chuck and Hart are in with people who think restraint is suspicious. Although, this one is more about friendship than serious danger.
The Out-Laws (Tyler Spindel, 2023)
Meeting the in-laws is stressful enough, isn’t it, without wondering whether they have just robbed your bank? That’s the absolute nightmare facing Owen in The Out-Laws. He is a cautious bank manager whose future wife’s parents turn up just before the wedding. Then masked robbers raid his workplace and seem to know far too much about the place. You what? How’s that happened, then? The timing is absolutely criminal.
Owen starts thinking his new in-laws might actually be the infamous Ghost Bandits, so now he has got to work out whether he is being paranoid or about to marry into a family of proper criminals. Pierce Brosnan makes it even better because he is so smooth that every answer sounds dodgy. Like 72 Hours, it drags a respectable fellow into danger he never saw coming. The difference? Owen can’t just leg it. These people are turning up at the wedding.
Game Over, Man! (Kyle Newacheck, 2018)
While some people spend years preparing for a crisis, the leads in Game Over, Man! have spent most of their time dodging work and trying to flog a video-game idea. Alexxx, Darren and Joel work in a hotel and haven’t got much ambition beyond finding some rich person silly enough to fund them. Then a celebrity party comes in, and they think they have finally cracked it. Only armed men seize the building instead.
The boys avoid getting captured and decide they are the best people available to rescue everyone. Oh, but they haven’t got a clue. The Workaholics cast are all here, so the humour is much filthier than 72 Hours. Still, the fun is the same. They think they have got it boxed off. They absolutely have not. Not in a million years.
The Wrong Missy (Tyler Spindel, 2020)
Anyone who has ever messaged the wrong person knows that little moment of horror. Tim thinks he has invited a woman he actually likes to a work retreat in Hawaii. Instead, he sends it to another Melissa. Oh the horror! She is a nightmare blind date he had hoped never to see again. He only realises when she turns up at the airport, buzzing for their romantic trip.
Once they reach the resort, Tim is desperately trying to protect his job while Missy behaves like social boundaries have been fully cancelled. Lauren Lapkus gives it everything, and you cannot take your eyes off her. Compared with 72 Hours, the danger here is humiliation rather than criminal violence, but the setup is quite similar. One rotten decision turns a manageable trip into absolute chaos, and every time Tim tries fixing it, he makes the whole carry-on even worse. Yet another Spindel special.