Stream It Or Skip It: ‘True Story’ On Netflix, Where Kevin Hart And Wesley Snipes Play Brothers Who Get In Deep Trying To Cover Up A Death

At some point, Kevin Hart went from a very successful stand-up comedian to multi-platform media mogul. Now, he’s decided to branch out and act in a thriller which is funny at times, but is more designed to show the world that Hart is a good dramatic actor. It helps that his co-star is Wesley Snipes. So does Hart make us forget, even for a moment, that he’s a comedian?

TRUE STORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man sits in a chair and talks right to the camera. “Was I surprised? Maybe I was.”

The Gist: The guy sitting in the chair is The Kid (Kevin Hart), one of the top comedians around. When he appears on Ellen, we hear that he not only sells out arenas with his stand-up, but he starred in a superhero franchise film that just passed $1 billion in box-office grosses. To say The Kid is flying high is an understatement.

When The Kid heads from LA to his hometown of Philadelphia for a gig, we see him in first class with his manager Todd (Paul Adelstein) and bodyguard Herschel (William Catlett), mostly having to deal with white people being overly gushing about his comedy — one of whom has the balls to repeat back an n-word routine without even thinking it was wrong.

At the Four Seasons in Philly, The Kid has invited his older brother Carlton (Wesley Snipes) to stay in his massive suite — they trick the concierge with a practical joke involving a huge blow-up sex doll — but despite the goofiness, they almost immediately get into their old beef with each other. Carlton has drained his younger brother’s ample bank account with one failed venture after another, the most recent being a restaurant business that left Carlton in seven-figure debt.

At this point, The Kid is content with cutting his brother loose, but Carlton has a weird sway over him. After his successful Philly gig, Carlton persuades Kid — who is six months sober — to drink with some hometown buddies of theirs. Kid meets a groupie and they eventually go back to his room.

But in the middle of the night, Carlton busts into Kid’s room and tells him that the girl Kid brought back died after ODing on oxi. Kid wants to call the cops but Carlton doesn’t think that will go well for him, and Kid realizes the press would have a field day with it, likely ruining everything he’s worked to build. Carlton offers to say the girl was with him, but Kid knows that it’ll eventually come back on him.

Carlton comes back with another solution: He calls in Ari (Billy Zane), a gangster buddy who is an expert “cleaner”. Ari, who is jealous of Kid’s money and fame, does clean up the situation, but demands half a million dollars from Kid — that’s half a million, per month, for a year, totaling $6 million.

Kid tries to figure out how to pay out that money without arousing suspicion, but something else eats at him: The fact that Ari is taking the money he busted his ass for years to earn. Because he doesn’t want Ari and what he knows threatening his livelihood, as well as his relationship with his soon-to-be ex-wife and their son, he makes a rash decision that shocks even Carlton.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In a lot of ways, True Story reads like a more serious version of The Flight Attendant. Both start out with someone waking up next to a dead person and not knowing what happened, and it spirals out from there.

Our Take: Written by Narcos vet Eric Newman, True Story really, really feels like it’s a vehicle to show audiences that Hart can act and do something other than goofy comedies. It seems to accomplish that — Hart does a fine job with the material he’s given — but the show seems to suffer from being a bit too close to Hart’s reality, along with a plot that seems like it’s less a story than just a jumping-off point.

The first episode starts promisingly enough, with the unsteady relationship between Kid and Carlton established right away. Kid is tired of propping up his older brother, and not just financially, and wants to cut him off once and for all. But their relationship is so complicated that Kid is willing to throw away his sobriety in order to stay in favor with Carlton.

That dynamic is one that we hope gets explored as we venture further into the season, mainly because Snipes is so good as the guy who always says “I’ve got this” but just gets the two of them deeper into trouble. Snipes and Hart play off each other well, and while it seems that Hart is the guy who is constantly complaining that people want a piece of him, Snipes’ Carlton is the steady presence, almost ironically, given Carlton’s failures in life and business.

We get that the dead girl in Kid’s room is the kick start to the thriller aspect of the series, but her sudden appearance and death derails what looked to be a more promising story about sibling rivalries and jealousies. Yes, her death brings in Zane, whose casually sinister performance as the violent cleaner Ari was one of the best things about the first episode. But we just felt that it was a jarring shift into thriller mode instead of something that could have been done with a little more story and character development ahead of it.

But we were also a bit annoyed at Kid’s constant complaining about how he worked for everything he has, but people are constantly in his pocket. It doesn’t seem like a stretch that Kid is closely based on Hart himself; Kid spews the same inspirational messages that we’ve seen coming from Hart on both his social media and places like his interview show Hart To Heart. Did Newman write Kid as a real character or just a thinly-veiled way for Hart to bitch about how everyone wants a piece of him?

That desire drives the most surprising moment in the episode, which will propel the action going forward. But we hope that we get less of the whining and more of Hart and Snipes playing off each other. That’s the dynamic that’s going to make True Story watchable.

Sex and Skin: None, at least in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Carlton walks into the suite, sees Ari, and yells to his brother, “What the hell did you do?” “I decided I didn’t want to pay six million dollars,” an exhausted Kid tells him.

Sleeper Star: Tawny Newsome plays Billie, a writer for the Kid who feels unappreciated and wants to take an offer for a Will Ferrell film. She doesn’t seem germane to the plot after the dead girl shows up but perhaps she’ll be a factor down the road.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Being rich ain’t that simple, Ari. It’s like you getting that dead body out of here; there’s a lot of twists and turns,” says Kid. Oof. Not a great analogy.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but only because Snipes plays such a dynamic role as Carlton, and his chemistry with Hart is fun to watch. The rest of True Story feels manufactured, and Hart’s role is too close to reality to separate the Kid from Hart, especially when he’s complaining about being rich and famous.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream True Story On Netflix