The Man from Toronto is a 2022 Netflix action comedy directed by Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3, The Hitman's Bodyguard and its sequel) and starring Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson.
Teddy Jackson (Hart), a washed-up entrepreneur from New York, has tried to plan the perfect anniversary surprise, and plans to prepare the secluded house he's rented in the same town where Randy (Harrelson), the world's deadliest assassin, has been sent to interrogate a suspect. A mix-up leads to Teddy arriving at the same cabin where the suspect is being held, and after the two are mistaken each other the two are forced to team up and save the day.
Originally scheduled to be theatrically released by Sony Pictures Releasing, the film's distribution rights were sold to Netflix, where it was released on June 24, 2022.
This film provides examples of:
- Big Bad: At first it seems like an assassination attempt on the Venezuelan president is the main villainous scheme, and that is indeed thwarted by Teddy and Randy's efforts. Then it turns out that Randy's hidden contact is behind the attempts on Randy's life, wanting to tie up loose ends relevant to her network of assassins and make off with the money the Venezuelan assassins had offered in exchange for the network's services.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Randy and Teddy discover that the superweapon that Marin, Randy's latest client, intends to assassinate the president of Venezuela with requires Mr. Green's thumbprint in order to activate it. Randy then escorts Teddy out of the room while the sounds of Mr. Green screaming in agony and a finger being severed are heard offscreen, after which Randy walks out with a thumb in Teddy's Cheetos bag. It later turns out that Randy actually cut off a thumb from one of Marin's slain henchmen, having never intended to help Marin's coup attempt.
- Brick Joke:
- Teddy's involvement in the film's events kick off with him misreading the address to the vacation cabin he rented after forgetting to replace the toner in his printer. At the end of the film, Teddy has trouble reading the receipt at Randy's new restaurant thanks to the printer there also being low on toner.
- After nearly sending Randy flying out of a cargo plane when he pulls the lever to open the door, Randy angrily tells him "never lever." Near the end of the film, when the handler corners Randy and Teddy in a food processing factory, Randy instructs Teddy to pull a lever on the wall that'll drop her into the vat of boiling oil below her, correcting himself with the phrase "sometimes lever."
- Towards the end of the film, Randy lets Teddy borrow Debora to get to the train station Lori is at, warning him not to get it damaged. After evading the police, Teddy swerves to miss an elderly woman on the road and gets the car stuck on the train tracks. After their heartfelt reconciliation, the train smashes into the car and totals it. Sure enough, when the protagonists reunite one year later, Randy makes it clear that still resents Teddy for this, even sending him a threatening phone call in The Stinger.
- Cool Car: Randy takes great pride in Debora, his 1969 Dodge Charger. It proves to live up to its reputation, being perfectly suited for getting Teddy to the train station Lori while short on time and on the run.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The handler gets dropped in a vat of boiling oil, where she turns into, as Randy puts it, "human tempura."
- Dark and Troubled Past: As Randy relates during the prologue, he was raised by his grandfather in the harsh Canadian wilderness and was quickly orphaned as a result of a bear attack. He still vividly remembers the sight of the bear tearing his grandfather to shreds, and the event led him down the path of violence, bringing him where he is today.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Well less on good, but the Man from Toronto is more noble than his handler as well as the Man from Miami and wears black in contrast to both their lighter outfits.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Colonel Marin is played up as the main antagonist of the film for much of its runtime. When he's finally confronted, however, he flees during a shootout with the FBI, with Randy's handler being unmasked as the real threat.
- Dragon Their Feet: After all the other assassins have been subdued or killed, including the handler herself, the Man from Tokyo shows up attempting to kill Teddy and Randy, but Randy promptly knocks him out.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Teddy's first scene shows a montage of him energetically attempting to record fitness videos on YouTube, with all of his equipment being counterintuitive to the point of regularly injuring him, establishing his nature as a fast-paced and incompetent loudmouth.
- Randy's first scene during the prologue depicts him tormenting a hostage by flashing a heated knife and telling a long-winded story about his troubled upbringing, which successfully draws out the information he needs before he can lay a finger on the guy. On his way out, he gives his client a cooking tip based on the smell coming from the kitchen. The scene establishes Randy's dual nature as a ruthless hitman with Hidden Depths, whose stoic demeanor contrasts a passion for culinary arts.
- The Man from Miami is introduced casually walking up to a wealthy businessman during a game of golf and immediately beating him to death with a club before casually shooting the guy's associate as he flees, establishing him as even more skilled and ruthless than Randy.
- For Want Of A Nail: Discussed. Teddy blames his involvement in the film's plot on the fact that he forgot to change his printer's toner, which resulted in him misreading the address to the cabin where he was going to celebrate his wife's birthday. Randy, meanwhile, points out that the "low toner situation" is just one symptom of Teddy's wider issues with staying on top of things.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The camera conveniently zooms in on Randy's face when he beheads an assassin with his own chainsaw, keeping that bit of carnage offscreen.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Teddy is fully aware that he's a screw-up, and makes it clear multiple times that not only did he want nothing to do with the whole mess, but is arguably the worst possible choice for association with the nickname of "The Man from Toronto". With some help from Randy, he learns to change for the better.
- Hidden Depths: Beneath his ruthless exterior, Randy has a passion for cooking and gets nervous around girls.
- Karma Houdini: Colonel Marin and his wife flee the shootout when the FBI storms the meeting.
- Light Is Not Good:
- The handler has white clothes and white hair, is more manipulative and sinister, and ultimately turns out to be the Big Bad.
- The Man from Miami has lighter clothes than the Man from Toronto and is proven worse than Toronto.
- Mirrored Confrontation Shot: Between Randy and Teddy on the poster.
- Mistaken for Badass: The whole plot is kicked off when Teddy arrives at the cabin where Randy was supposed to interrogate one of the mooks involved in the (supposed) main villain's scheme. Because the mooks haven't seen The Man from Toronto in person, they think Teddy is the Man from Toronto's real identity, and Teddy has to play along to avoid trouble. Randy quickly discovers the misunderstanding, but is forced to bring Teddy along because the villains have already received a photo taken of Teddy and also think he's the Man from Toronto.
- No Name Given: The name of Randy's handler is never given in the film, and even the credits list her as "The Handler." At first, the film implies that her name is Debora, only for it to turn out that this is actually the name of Randy's car. None of the men she hires to kill Randy are named either. All of them have the same "Man from (City Name)" scheme as Randy does.
- Noodle Implements: The thug that mistakes Teddy for Randy goes through Teddy's box while he's in the bathroom. It's full of stuff for a romantic weekend (flowers, whipped cream, lube, etc.), but he thinks it's full of torture devices. His expression is a mix of confusion and
squick as he goes through the box. - Not So Above It All: Randy is almost always a no-nonsense contract killer when on the job, but he has moments in which he makes jokes with his employers, even during tense moments.
- Off with His Head!: Randy decapitates the chainsaw-wielding assassin with his own weapon during the climax.
- The Oner: The final fight with the handler's assassins in the gym is done in one take.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Taken to its logical extreme. After finding his email on the Airbnb receipt printout left over in Onancock, Randy has the handler hack Teddy's account. She finds four letters— P, A, S, and S, at which point Randy tries "PASSWORD" as Teddy's password. It works.
- Person as Verb: In the law firm at which Lori works, they've coined "Teddy" as a verb meaning "to screw something up." Kevin Hart's character is taken aback by the fact that his name has been associated with failure, but uses it as motivation to keep himself from "Teddying" things. Early in the film, Randy also finds out and pokes fun at him for it.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: While on the plane flight from Puerto Rico to Washington D.C., Randy quietly tells Teddy that he knows everything about Teddy's past as a failure, and calls him out on his fear of failure. To his credit, Teddy concedes the point (helped by his own Heroic Self-Deprecation) and resolves to make amends.
- Scream Discretion Shot: Used as a plot point when Randy severs Mr. Green's thumb after interrogating him; the event occurs offscreen while Teddy is walking away from the aftermath of the interrogation, and the only indication about what happened is Mr. Green screaming in agony and Randy walking out with his thumb. Later, the FBI learns that Randy didn't actually cut off Mr. Green's thumb, instead taking that of his dead captor, revealing that Randy never intended to help Marin with his coup.
- Shot in the Ass: Teddy gets caught in the crossfire in the first fight between Randy and the Man from Miami and as a result, his ass gets grazed by a bullet. The next scene after this centers around Randy removing the bullet in a bathroom and getting strange looks from random passersby.
- The Stinger: Teddy is shown to have opened up his own cardio clinic, and while filming a live session he gets a threatening call from Randy, who still blames him for the destruction of his prized car and is waiting for him right outside the clinic. Cue Oh, Crap! from Teddy, with the live-feed still on.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: When Teddy realizes that he accidentally slashed a hostage's eye open while trying to find out which one of them is Mr. Green, he copiously vomits on everyone in full view of the camera.
- White Bread and Black Brotha: Played With. The eponymous Man from Toronto is the white straight man to black Teddy Jackson's wise guy. However, in this case, it's Teddy who's playing the role of the goofy everyman to Toronto's cold-blooded (at first) killer.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: This is eventually revealed to be the reason for "the Minnesota incident". Randy was assigned to off a chronic gambler, but then he saw the target's son hiding in his car and couldn't bring himself to repeat his cycle of violence. Unfortunately, the gambler promptly went on a killing spree the following day.
