On a certain level, it’s understandable if not exactly reassuring that there are more movies and TV shows about hitmen than (one presumes) there are actual professional assassins in the real world. After all, the occupational juxtaposition of life and death is an effective way, narratively speaking, to line-jump directly to high stakes that don’t necessarily always require a lot of subtlety. There are plenty of folks who enjoy, after a long week at work, empty escapist fare with a couple cool shootouts and some loose revenge-gone-wrong plotting.

Nevertheless, some projects use this frame and device to try to aggressively explore new and different terrain. The award-winning Barry, starring Bill Hader, is but one example of this subversive genre instinct, even if its final season came across as somewhat of a fumble at the goal-line. Then there’s the case of something like The Man From Toronto, an at times mildly successful but ultimately draining and unmemorable action comedy that belongs in a perhaps new category of classification.

A recent release from Netflix, the movie stars Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson (the latter a late substitution for Jason Statham, who dropped out over creative differences rooted in the desire for a more bloody telling) and evinces numerous classic examples of cart-before-horse overthinking. Instead of simply telling the best and funniest story that it could, the movie seems framed in a manner that makes one wonder if it was written while screenwriters Robbie Fox and Chris Bremner (producer Jason Blumenthal also takes a story credit, alongside Fox) were eyeing the cumulative grosses of the John Wick movies — a somewhat accidental mega-franchise sprung from a modestly budgeted, tightly told original tale.

This notion is perhaps not surprising, given that The Man From Toronto is directed by Patrick Hughes, an Australian-born filmmaker who cut his teeth on The Expendables 3, and then painted himself into a comfortably gilded occupational prison of sorts with 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard (a huge worldwide hit, at $184 million) and its far less successful 2021 follow-up, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. In short, The Man From Toronto feels like it was deemed a franchise from the start, before any audience actually had a chance to weigh in. It crams in subplots and additional elements, desperate to establish a broader “world,” rather than root down more substantively and compellingly into the dilemmas of its main characters.

Hart stars as Teddy Jackson, an earnest and positive-minded would-be fitness entrepreneur whose big dreams and plans always seem prone to misfire. Seeking to reset and smooth over recent troubles, Teddy takes his wife Lori (Jasmine Mathews) on a birthday getaway in rural Virginia. The problem: he screwed up his online cabin booking, which leads to Teddy being mistaken for the titular character, a mysterious assassin with a reputation as a brutal and effective interrogator. In reality, that person turns out to be Randy (Harrelson), who takes assignments over the telephone from a handler (Ellen Barkin) whom he’s never met. After Teddy manages to get a hostage to cough up some information, he’s picked up by the FBI, who then strong-arms him into continuing to pose as the man from Toronto in exchange for paying off his mortgage.

With his wife away enjoying a spa day, Teddy finds himself thrust into dangerous and uncharted waters, eventually crossing paths with the man whom he’s impersonating. Randy is none too pleased with this ridiculousness, but when informed that other assassins (known only in similar fashion by the designations of their home cities) are at first out on an open contract and then gunning for him, he forms an uneasy alliance with Teddy — the duo cutting their way through all sorts of mayhem.

The film unfolds in largely familiar fashion and its overall tone and rhythms track much as one would expect, with Hart’s chattering, overly articulated nervousness receiving a slow-burn counterbalance from Harrelson’s icy exterior. In large part what makes it work is a nice, easygoing chemistry between the pair. The action staging is only so-so; what really plays are the character dynamics, making one wish for a less aggressively brawny treatment of this concept. Things truly run aground, however, when Randy’s sublimated lovelorn nature, and desire for a potential change in his life (he dreams of being a restauranteur), receives potential rooted purchase in Lori’s friend Anne (Kaley Cuoco). The Big Bang Theory star is a game performer, but her material is sorely underwritten, and even though she’s not an equal partner here the inclusion of this entire angle seems designed for the film’s end scene, and potential sequels.

The Man From Toronto’s Blu-ray presentation arrives in a 1080p high-definition rendering in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, with a DTS-HD master audio track; optional subtitles in English (SDH), Spanish and French; and a digital code compatible with the Movies Anywhere app. It’s a very good transfer with warm colors and a lack of artifacts or edge enhancement, even if the movie’s original 4K Netflix presentation might’ve been better for some viewers. In addition to motion menus and the movie’s original trailer, bonus features consist of a half-dozen deleted scenes, totaling just under eight minutes, that offer confirmation of Hart and Harrelson’s affable chemistry — but also an even more bloated, compromised story, with disjointed tangents that further indicate a behind-the-scenes power struggle over what was likely the original idea for this movie and a bigger story that certain producers wanted to tell, regardless of the awkwardness and ill-fitting nature of it when juxtaposed with the core narrative themes.