“Central Intelligence” is unabashedly silly and outrageous, but it is also quite hilarious at times for pushing its comic premise as much as it can. While this is basically a mismatched duo comedy reminiscent of many other comedy films such as “The In-Laws” (1979), it works mainly thanks to the undeniable comic chemistry between its two contrasting lead performers, and it is often fun to see how they are having a ball here.

Kevin Hart plays Calvin “Golden Jet” Joyner, a meek accountant who was once the most popular dude in his high school but now feels like going nowhere in his current status. While he has a fairly good job and a loving wife, he is not so pleased when somebody else is promoted instead of him, and then his wife suggests that they should have a therapy session due to the growing estrangement between them.

That is why Calvin is all the more reluctant to attend the upcoming high school, but then someone unexpectedly approaches to him via Facebook. That figure in question is a guy named Bob Calton (Dwayne Johnson), and Calvin does not recognize him at first, but Bob was formerly Robbie Weirdicht, whom Calvin kindly helped a bit in the middle of one of his most humiliating moments in their high school. Although he was quite socially awkward and unpopular besides being quite obese during that time, Bob is now a hulking muscular guy, and it looks like he is quite changed from who he once was.

Anyway, Calvin and Bob have a fairly good drinking evening together, and Bob eventually stays at Calvin’s house for one night, but, of course, there soon comes a big problem for Calvin on the very next morning. It turns out that Bob has actually worked for CIA, and he also has been on the run due to some serious problem involved with national security, which is more or less than your average MacGuffin. Needless to say, Calvin tries to stay out of his friend’s problem as much as possible, but, what do you now, he only ends up getting more involved with his friend instead. They are soon chased by a bunch of CIA agents led by Agent Pamela Harris (Amy Ryan), and they must also find whoever is trying to frame Bob. 

Once its comic setting is established, the movie steadily throws one absurd moment after another besides providing a lot of obligatory action scenes. We get a fair share of chuckles from a hilarious action scene unfolded at Calvin’s workplace, and then we are also tickled a lot by when Calvin must handle his increasingly insane circumstance while not revealing anything in front of his wife. In case of several action scenes in the film, they are handled well under the competent direction of director/co-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber, and they also never become too intense for the comic momentum along the story.

In addition, the movie sometimes shows its sweet sides as Bob comes to show more sincerity to Calvin even though Calvin is often not so certain about whether he can really trust Bob or not. Despite his changed appearance, Bob is still that awkward bullied kid who does not forget Cavin’s compassion and kindness at that time, and that is the main reason why Calvin decides to help Bob more despite more troubles in front of them. As a matter of fact, thanks to his crazy action adventure with Bob, Calvin cannot help but feel more alive than before, and it can be said that Bob is actually helping him just like he helped Bob at that time.

Around the last act, the movie begins to lose some of its comic momentum to some degree as things get more serious for our two heroes as expected, but the effortless comic interactions between Hart and his co-star still carry the film as before. Dialing down his usual rambunctious comic persona a bit, Hart is believable as a plain guy sensibly trying to deal with the sheer absurdity surrounding him, and that surely makes his several comic key scenes in the film all the more amusing to us. On the opposite, Dwayne Johnson, who is no stranger to comedy as well as action, effectively complements his co-star with irrepressible sincerity and jolliness, and he also does not hesitate to go further for more silliness later in the story.

The movie places several good performers here and there around Hart and Johnson, and they mostly play straight for our extra laugh. While Amy Ryan a no-nonsense agent who turns out to be more persistent than expected, Danielle Nicolet has her own moment as Calvin’s genuinely concerned wife, and Aaron Paul is also solid as Bob’s ill-fated ex-partner. In case of Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, and Kumail Nanjiani, they do not disappoint us at all as reminding us again of their considerable comic talent, and Bateman, who can be quite smarmy if that is required, is particularly good when his character cruelly ridicules both Calvin and Bob at one point in the middle of the story.

Although it has been almost 10 years since it came out in 2016 (I somehow missed it around that time, by the way), “Central Intelligence” is often very funny as balancing itself well between humor and action along with its engaging lead performers, and I will not deny that I laughed more than once even though I often clearly saw through where and how it would amuse me. As many of you know, some good comedy films can remain funny and entertaining even after going through a considerable passage of time, and this is one of those nice cases to cherish in my trivial opinion.