Movie Nation

Even if you’re old enough to remember “How High,” you probably don’t remember how sloppy and generally unfunny it was. Because the whole point of watching it back in pre-legalized 2001 was to be a little buzzed during the experience.

Taking umbrage that Method Man and Redman weren’t included in the 2019 sequel even though they’d been approached and promised that they’d get to reprise their stoners-with-a-mission movie career high-water mark roles is understandable, but misguided.

Look at Mike Epps in “How High 2.” Fiftyish guys still playing stoners is a little sad and not nearly as funny.

The original film had some funny bits and a quirkiness that some remember fondly. The sequel has less than that going for it.

But the big diff is that “How High” landed Garrett Morris, Fred Willard, Anna Maria Horsford, Hector Elizondo and Jeffrey Jones in the supporting cast.

“How High 2?” Mike Epps is the only “name” in it. You might recognize Mary Lynn Rajskub from “Night School” and “Little Miss Sunshine.” A scattering of famous (Lil Baby) to a lot less famous rappers and comics show up. But a funny script attracts big names to play funny bits. So there you go.

Lil Yachty and  D.C. Young Fly star in this tale of two Atlantans who discover, then lose, “superweed” and the “bible” for growing it, and embark on an odyssey through high school and college, Big Pharma and Russian Mafia to get it back.

Because Roger (Yachty) has this Big Idea for an app that he needs to get financed. “Two Smack” will be an app “to deliver snacks to weed heads!”

Gold mine, right? He should know. Two temptresses ply him with joints in an effort to rob the fast food joint where he works in the film’s opening scene.

That gets him fired, and without his cut-rate dealer/Uber-beater driver cousin Cal (Fly) at the bank loan officer meeting to back him up, all Roger has is gift cards for collateral.

All is lost until that night they they stumble into a stash hidden behind a brick in the wall of Roger’s mama’s basement. A “Weed Bible” might not impress anybody, but the lone sample joint included with it has them seeing Baby Powder (Epps) from the first “How High,” and multiplicities of themselves on a Never Ending Sofa, pretty much in an instant.

They’ve no sooner grown a “Little Shop of Horrors” sized plant from the seeds than they’re “ghetto-taxed,” robbed of their herb. Who got it? Big Bang (DeRay Davis) the dealer next door?

“Why do they call me Big BANG?”

“‘Cause you’re the spark that startled it all.”

Maybe the Russian mob down at the strip club grabbed it. Or high school kids. Or college kids. Or that big pharmaceutical firm Alicia (Alyssa Goss) works at. Roger’s been sweet on her since high school. For some reason, beautiful business woman with a good job Alicia joins them on their quest.

Here’s what works. Davis as Big Bang has the most funny lines, bad puns such as “You’re heard of Selma? They SELMA weed down there!”

I had to look up D.C. Young Fly’s real name (John Whitfield) to make sure he wasn’t Chris Tucker’s kid. Because the lad is ANTIC, wound UP. And funny.

He mugs for the camera, but he’s got amusing physical shtick and a lightning quick “Young Chris Tucker” patter. Listen to him tick off Cal’s “rules of survival” for getting out of any jam — fender bender to out-of-control frat party.

“Rule number one, NEVER apologize! Rule number two, NEVER give out your GOVERNMENT name. Rule number three, NEVER throw a cup that gets free refills!”

Lil Yachty (look for a Miles Park McCollum sight gag, because that’s his real name) isn’t nearly as good at the whole mugging, manic way with a line thing. He’s saddled with a flurry of obscure (ish) pop culture reference zingers — “Why y’all gotta go all Clermont Twins on me like that?” Alicia? She looks “Angela Rye/Jemele HILL amazing!”

Yeah, older white guy critic cracking on African American pop culture jokes is exactly what Cal is bitching about when he barks, “Y’all GOTTA stop watching black movies, right? Cuz you’re F—–g up the culture!”

I get it.It’s kind of like this, right?

But hey, I used to work with Jemele. Gotta count for something. And I follow Tommy Chong on twitter. What’s that tell you?

It’s not just the cast or the script that lets down “How High 2.” It’s the whole legalized/CBD Oil culture shift that does it in.

MPAA Rating:  TV-MA, pot use and abuse, sexual situations, mock violence

Cast: Lil Yachty,  D.C. Young Fly, Alyssa Goss, DeRay Davis, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Mike Epps.

Credits: Directed by Bruce Leddy, script by Shawn Ries and Artie Johann. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:28

“The meek shall inherit the Earth,” Jesus preached in his “Sermon on the Mount.”

By that ethos, Soane Tokelau should be landed gentry on his native Wallis Island in French Polynesia.

He doesn’t look it, a Polynesian hulk of 120 kilos (265 pounds). But when we meet him, this 19 year-old seems built for pushing around. He never looks anyone in the eye, never speaks until spoken to and then only softly.

Playing rugby seems out of character, but he does. Size alone makes him a prospect, and a home island talent scout, Abraham (Laurent Pakihivatau) is the first to bend the kid to his will. He talks him into taking a plane ticket and signing away a chunk of his future for a shot at playing rugby in France.

And then there’s his defiant, rageaholic father (Petelo Sealeu) puts his foot down, repeating the “WORTHLESS” label he’s long given the boy. The old man administers a power-cord beating for the kid’s budding defiance. Soane (Toki Pilioko) just whimpers and takes it. His mind is made up, and scoring his back won’t change it.

“Mercenary (Mercenaire)” is about Soane’s journey, a pitfall-packed sports drama built on a “Once Were Warriors” domestic tragedy. It’s conventional in its structure, exceptional in its dread. Because unlike young Soane, we can see the holes he’s about to fall into long before he does.

His father may treat his rebellion and savage beating as some Wallis Island rite of passage, even throwing him a farewell banquet, slaying the fatted pig for the family gathering. But Soane’s younger brother’s begging to come with him tell the real story.

Dad’s a mean, brutish drunk, prone to waving guns or machetes in the faces of those who stand up to him. It’s leave, or die.

Soane boards a plane with just the clothes on his slashed-up back, a family Bible his grandmother gave him and the address of a family cousin in France. As green as he is, he’ll need all that, and a lot of luck, because the moment be deplanes, his luck is bad.

He gives the French club rep his correct weight, leading to instant dismissal. Big time rugby wants its Polynesian players to be giants. Passersby on the street might ask Soane if he’s from the All Blacks, New Zealand’s famous Maori-packed squad. But no expert would make the mistake.

“He’s not what you’d call a beast,” is how one player describes him (in French with English subtitles). “Just a big teddy bear.”

The cousin (Mikaele Tuugahala) has little pity. The kid screwed up, and screwed over Abraham, who is out the money for a very pricey plane ticket, signing bonus, all of it. He should just go home.

But OK, sure. Let’s find somebody that’ll let him play as a semi-pro prospect.

Soane finds himself trying to make the grade with the Fumel minor league squad, teased and taunted by the native-born French players, who’re given to racist cracks (“Did you go ‘cannibal’ on her? Are you a savage, or what? How about a‘ Haka’ (the Pacific islander chest-thumping dance challenge made famous by New Zealand’s All Blacks)?”

Only the impoverished Georgian ex-pats on the team bond with the kid, one of them giving him advice (“Don’t get married” while trying to make a living in this sport.) and the film its title.

“We’re god–mned mercenaries.”

Writer-director Sacha Wolff skillfully navigates the inevitable training regimen in dialogue-free montages. Pilioko stays true to character, always averting his eyes, guileless in the extreme.

Sloane must get bullied and tested and bullied some more to make an impression on him, give him the desperation and fury he needs to succeed in this toughest of team sports.

The “dread” I mentioned earlier comes from Soane’s attitude towards Abraham, his ignoring of the don’t-get-attached-romantically advice thanks to cashier and club groupie Coralie (Iliana Zabeth).

Wolff’s made a perfectly passable making-the-grade-in-your-game sports picture, but wrapped it in Wallis Island sequences that give us that “Haka,” and give the movie cultural currency.

A film that could have just been a standard-issue rugby primer– with subtitles –becomes something with grit and heart, a rite-of-passage tale that’s as revealing of the island culture that’s embraced rugby as it is of the sport itself.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, nudity, alcohol abuse

Cast:  Toki Pilioko, Iliana Zabeth, Mikaele Tuugahala, Laurent Pakihivatau, Petelo Sealeu

Credits: Written and directed by Sacha Wolff.  A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:39

Screen Gems is the “We don’t preview these for critics” (generally) division of Sony.

So this Sam Raimi-produced, Jackie Weaver horror take with an over familiar title becomes a pig in a poke, and the first wide release of a new decade. May not be a pig, but it is indeed hidden in a poke.

The tropes, story arc, violence and stereotypes of mob movies are so ingrained that it’s nigh on impossible to do anything new with the genre.

The only novelty in the “true story” variant served up in “The Irishman” by Martin Scorsese, the master in the field, is excessive “epic” length and attempts to digitally de-age three giants of the genre — DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci.

So don’t punch up “The Ruthless,” a fact-based account of the Milanese mafia of the ’70s and ’70s and ’80s, and expect anything new. A generous take? It’s “Goodfellas” with subtitles, a career in crime about‘ Ndrangheta, an Italian mob run by men from Calabria (Southern Italy, the toe of the boot) and not Sicilians.

A compelling lead, brutal violence set in unfamiliar settings and period piece detail don’t put “Lo spietato” (the Italian title) on a par with Scorsese’s 1990 Liotta/Pesci/DeNiro masterpiece. It’s also not as compelling as the most famous Italian mob picture, the docu-drama “Gomorrah.”

But the real made-men who live these “Donnie Brasco” lives rarely realize what cliches they are. And it’s 90 minutes shorter than “The Irishman.” So why not?

“Ruthless” is a portrait of Santo Russo, played by the sleepy-eyed Riccardo Scamarcio of “Loro” and “John Wick: Chapter 2.” We meet him in 1990 at his self-satisfied peak, a penthouse with a view of Milan’s famed Madonnina gilded statue — the sava topping the city’s famous Cathedral, a yellow Lamborghini to tool around in.

But some guys he’s crossed on a dope deal show up and make some threats. That sends Santo into a reminiscence — an 85 minute flashback that takes him to his 1960s arrival in Milan, teen skirt-chaser in revolt against his mob-shamed father, busted for a crime he didn’t commit.

Prison is where Santo’s education begins with an initiation beating/head-dunking in a toilet from “Slim.” It takes no time for him to become as ruthless as everybody else.

“We Calabrians aren’t like Sicilians. We meet, talk and deliberate before we kill someone!”

The lengthy flashback, with periodic narration from Santo, takes him into the ’70s, a young thug on the make and on the rise, still teamed with Slim (Alessio Praticò), learning the crude art of armed robbery where savagery counts for more than cunning.

“I can honestly say,” he purrs in the narration (in Italian, with English subtitles), “I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

His crew ingratiates itself with the higher-ups in the underworld, he meets the girl from his hometown (Sara Serraiocco), all grown up and pious — but not so pious that they don’t make a baby before their wedding day.

A “business” that Mariangela turns a blind eye to, even as she’s washing the blood out of his shirts, ambitions that rise from robberies and theft to kidnappings, extortion and murders, the tempation (Marie-Ange Casta) of another woman — an artist.

It’s all entirely too familiar.  

Director and co-writer Renato De Maria (“Italian Gangsters”) makes few attempts to find anything fresh to say in all of this. The script’s “humor” is in the pregnant wedding, rushed because the cops bust in for Santo’s latest arrest, the priest hurrying through the vows and the obliging Carabinieri posing with the wedding party for photos, and in Santo’s beast-mode reaction to walking in on a gay conceptual artist friend of his mistress’s viewing/”happening” in the apartment he puts her up in.

It’s bloody. The swells in attendance think the savagery is all part of the show.

Scamarcio has an owlish menace about him that overcomes much of the over-familiarity of all this. The old-fashioned sexism — the women are almost literally Madonnas or Whores — isn’t excused by what is plainly intended as a cinematic throwback. The leading ladies come off as more interesting than the characters they’re playing, which helps.

The gaucherie, the ugly fashions and cool Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Jaguars, Ferraris and Citroens are little compensation for the weariness of the plot, the gruesome but not novel violence and the charmingly half-assed car chase shoved in here.

I’d say “Think of what SCORSESE could have done with this.” But hell, I’m not up for another three and a half hours married to the mob any more than you are.

Cast: Riccardo Scamarcio, Sara Serraiocco, Alessio Praticò, Alessandro Tedeschi, Marie-Ange Casta

Credits: Directed by Renato De Maria  script by Renato De Maria, Valentina Strade and Federico Gnesini, based on the book “Manager Calibro 9” by Piero Colaprico. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:51

Still “quiet,” still creepy. Emily Blunt? Still fierce.

One great thing about the rise of Netflix streaming is its contribution to the general public’s knowledge of film history. For instance, while you probably remember the Jake Gyllenhaal/Sam Mendes stresses-of-combat classic “Jarhead” from 2005, who knew there have been three sequels?

Sure, they’re not directed by or starring anybody with a big name, and they’re of steadily diminishing quality, but they’re out there.

“Jarhead: Law of Return” is the new one, a film that invokes Israel’s “Law of Return,”the legal justification for granting Israeli citizenship to any Jew anywhere in the world. That’s how Major Ronan Jackson (Devon Sawa of “Final Destination” and TV’s “Nikita”) ended up there, a U.S. trained F-16 pilot flying for the Israeli Air Force, married to an Israeli.

Jackson’s mother was Jewish, so that’s how he landed “oleh” (immigrant) citizenship status.

But as anybody knows, “Jarhead” is U.S. jargon for a Marine. How’re we getting the Marines into Israel to help rescue Jackson after he’s shot down over the Golan Heights? Jackson’s daddy (Robert Patrick) is a U.S. Senator. Only a joint Marine Corps/Shaldag (Israeli commandos) can save Jackson from the clutches of the Iranian-backed Golan Freedom Brigade, and their anonymous, murderous leader, The Ghost (George Zlatarev).

“If he lets you see his eyes, you’re DEAD!”

Amaury Nolasco(TV’s “Deception) plays “gunny” Sgt. Dave Flores, leader of a grizzled team of tough-talking, swaggering hulks of testosterone and tattoos. Meeting their Israeli counterparts (Amos Tamam plays their leader) and the Mossad agent (Yael Eitan) makes for a mildly interesting pissing contest.

The Israelis are all mysterious, anonymous warriors — “Our names, like God’s, are not to be spoken.”

The Jarheads are all, “Yeah, you’re Brenner, you’re Brodetsky…”

They quickly find themselves in the thick of it, tracking the missing pilot, fighting and dying on a mission that “does not exist” in a desperate race against the clock.

The firefights are routine, with the odd eye-rolling boner of a moment. The pilot fends off terrorists armed with truck-mounted machine guns and AK-47s with just his sidearm.

Maybe that’s because he’s hiding out in the only field of bulletproof sunflowers in all of the Middle East (filmed in Israel and Bulgaria). Time and again, Palestinian fighters hold their guns up high to shoot OVER the flowers when Jackson is hiding IN among them. 

The ordinance ranges from “Sure” to laughable. Wait’ll you see what it takes to bring Jackson down. The wacky modified dune buggies of all low-rent commando movies turn up as super secret assault vehicles. A sniper uses the automatic weapon with the shortest barrel on earth to become Arabic Sniper.

Then there’s the debate in HQ, where the Marine four-star general (Ben Cross of “Chariots of Fire”) would be a lot more impressive to the Israelis if he wasn’t plainly wearing his stars on a jacket with sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves.

Actor-turned writer-director Don Michael Paul specializes in low-budget sequels WAY down the line from the original “Death Race,” “Sniper,” “Bulletproof,” “Scorpion King” or “Kindergarten Cop,” so don’t expect him to sweat the details. He scripted the epic fiasco “Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man,” so the hard-boiled dialogue is…hardcore.

“This is Benghazi all OVER again!”

Yes, the whole affair plays like Israeli propaganda, gory and trigger-happy but cut-rate, inept and unsatisfying. But Universal has to make up that cash they lost on “Cats” somewhere.

MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and language throughout, and some sexual content/nudity

Cast: Devon Sawa, Amaury Nolasco, Yael Eitan, Amos Tamam, George Zlatarev, Robert Patrick and Ben Cross

Written and directed by Don Michael Paul. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:42

It was a banner year for documentaries and an off year for animation. And Almodovar.

Sure, give Banderas a Best Actor nomination, but “Pain & Glory?” Meh.

It was a year without Woody Allen, our first and not our last.

When we remember 2019 at the movies, we will remember a comic book movie that broke through, was actually about something important, and was one of the best-acted pictures of the year.

Martin Scorsese had the best year. No, I don’t think“The Irishman” is all that. But the man made a great, playful music doc (“Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story”). And the cinema’s greatest filmmaker/scholar presided over one of the great “rescue edits” in screen history, pulling a fine movie out of the debacle of “The Current War.”

Pity they didn’t bring him in for “The Rise of Skywalker,” or that middling Avengers movie lesser lights wet their pants over in the early summer.

It was a year of hidden gems, even if “Uncut Gems” wasn’t one. It’s a good movie, not hidden, but I’m not buying the Sandler hype — not for a second. Two such overlooked jewels were about Emily Dickinson (“A Quiet Passion,” “Wild Nights with Emily”).

“American Woman”should have reminded everybody how good an actress Sienna Miller is, and how rough life in the American working class still is. Nobody saw it, or “I See You” or “The Chambermaid,” and not that many saw “The Art of Self Defense” or “Mickey and the Bear,” either.

The Best Netflix Movie wasn’t “Marriage Story,” although the scale of it — a character piece, all about performance, kitchen sink drama and acting — suits the streaming service better than the epics they keep signing blank checks for (“Roma” last year, “The Irishman” this year.). I’d say the same for “The Two Popes,” very much a filmed stage play — a two-hander, with two great actors carrying the picture onto screens big and small.

The BEST Netflix movie, and most Oscar-worthy ex-“Saturday Night Live” performance, was “Dolemite is My Name,” starring Eddie Murphy.

“Atlantics” is almost as good, a beautiful, impressionistic drama of love, human migration and modern Senegal.” Netflix should spend more money showing us the world, They certainly get more bang for their movie-making buck in Africa, Central and South America and the little-covered corners of Asia.

There were so many outstanding candidates for Best Documentary that I’m just going to pull them out for their own list.

“Where’s My Roy Cohn?” and “Honeyland”were the best documentaries, one an indictment-worthy bio-pic/political history, the other about a solitary beekeeper in the highlands of Macedonia. Fascinating.

“Apollo 11” is worthy of an Oscar nomination, an impressive recounting of “One small step” and the people who took it. A throwback to “American pride,” and what we’re still proud of.

“Rodents of Unusual Size”is the documentary you track down on streaming to have a chuckle learning about nutria and the bayous, bays and riverbanks these varmints have taken over.

“The Queen” was the most worthy “American history we know nothing about” doc, about the pre-history of drag queens, long before “La Cage” and RuPaul mainstreamed them into the culture.

“Rolling Thunder Revue” and “Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice” were the best music docs. “Echoes in the Canyon” was better than that David Crosby one that got wide play. I forget the title.

“Be Natural”is the best documentary about movie-making in many a year, a film that rewrites film history in telling us the story of Alice Guy-Blache, the first female film director, a Frenchwoman who learned her craft in France during the last days of the Victorian Era, and made a mark in America as well. And then was forgotten.

And you can toss a coin to decide which of the two excellent documentaries with “Midnight” in the title was best –– “Midnight Traveler,”about refugees fleeing Afghanistan, or “Midnight Family,” about the Wild West of ambulance drivers in Mexico City.

The best comic book picture is listed below, but “Captain Marvel” was fun enough, marginally more fun than the latest “Spider-Man.”

But let’s get to the main event, shall we? The best pictures I saw in 2019 are, in my way of thinking, the movies I will come back to and watch again down the road.

I have never watched “The Shape of Water” a second time, not bothered streaming “Roma” again, not burned through “Green Book” or for that matter any comic book movie of the past 20 years in a repeat viewing. “Rogue One” is the lone “Star Wars” picture that passes this test. “Dunkirk” I must have seen half a dozen times, five times more than I’ve seen “A Star is Born.”

I lean towards period pieces, historical films and “movies about something.”

I will watch “Best of Enemies” again — with relatives. And “Dark Waters.” I’m looking forward to seeing everything on the list below a second time.

What movies are worth rewatching, which ones have the best chance of “holding up,” as we say?

The best pictures of 2019 are…

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Netflix continues its holiday season culling of Christian fundamentalist subscribers by adding a second holiday-themed religious special from the Brazilian TV and Youtube comedy troop Porta dos Fundos” to its offerings.

Whatever else they’ve managed in their brief career as satirists, these Portuguese-speaking pranksters have certainly shown a gift for stirring folks up.

“The First Temptation of Christ,”released just a week or two back,drew instant outrage for its depiction of the 30th birthday party of Jesus, whose time in the desert has helped him find himself. He’s found himself, and a boyfriend. He’s gay in that raucous farce, which has an infectious noisy energy that translates, even if you have to read the one-liners to get too many of the jokes.

“The Last Hangover,” their riff on “The Last Supper” (see the photo above) isn’t nearly as funny and not quite as blasphemous as “First Temptation of Christ.” It came out a year before “First Temptation,” so think of it as a dry run in the “Let’s see what we can get away with and how funny we can make this sad event on the Liturgical Calendar.”

It’s about the morning after that “big party” Jesus invited all the disciples to. Everybody’s hungover. Nobody knows where the Son of God is. Through flashbacks, as the staggering apostles come to their senses, they try and figure that out.

“Are you splitting the bill?” a waiter (in Portuguese, remember, with English subtitles) wants to know as the evening begins.

“It’s all on Him!” Simon, or maybe Peter says.

Jesus (Fábio Porchat) has trouble holding the floor, gets into arguments and ends all of them the same way.

“Do you know who my Father is?”

He’s always joking around, changing water into wine mid-gulp. Makes quite the drinking game.

He’s trying to tell the lads — some of whom have remembered this is a pot luck (I won’t say which apostle brings the cocaine), some of whom think inviting Mary Magdalene (Karina Ramil) and her “girls” for entertainment was a good idea — that he’s “leaving” them.

So it’s a farewell party? Pass the humus!

“NO,” he shouts, standing up as he does. “I’m gonna DIE!”

He’s choking! Bartholomew! Give him the Heimlich! Just in time, too.

“He’s back! It’s a MIRACLE!”

They grab him and annoy the heck out of him with their preferred celebration of a miracle.

“Stop KISSING! Always with the kissing!”

The whole 44 minutes of this TV “Nativity” special, titled “”Drink, Don’t Eat” is like this. They pose for a group photo–OK, it’s a portrait.

“How long is this going to take?”

“I’m still on the first apostle,” the painter complains.

The guests compete with magic tricks, knowing full well this a specialty of the Son of God. Somebody is always yelling for “JAMES…No, the OTHER James!”

The reason any of this works, in either of their religious specials, is the common currency of the content — knowing stories from the New Testament, being familiar with who Peter, Judas and the Gang are and what role they’re supposed to play in the story.

I’d still like to see this ensemble take a shot at Ramadan, but “Searching for Comedy in the Muslim World” has generally proven fruitless.

A couple of times, “Hangover’s” evening of betrayal over drinks turns giddy, but there isn’t much of the laugh-out-loud variety. The “miracle” here is that there was enough promise in this “special” to earn Porta dos Fundos a second shot at a Nativity show, one with a lot more laughs and originality than “Last Hangover.”

MPAA Rating: unrated, drugs, profanity, impending violence

Cast: Fábio Porchat, Gregório Duvivier, Karina Ramil, Antonio Tabet, Pedro Benevides, Paulo Vieira, Fábio de Luca

Credits: Rodrigo Van Der Put. A Porta dos Fundos/Netflix release.

Running time: :44

The iconic look of sci fi cinema was redefined in the late ’70s and early ’80s by Syd Mead, a visual stylist who cast a long shadow over the genre.

An artist and futurist who worked for Ford, his conceptual art for films gave him a dash of immortality.

“Tron,” “2010,” “Mission to Mars, “Short Circuit” even.

And then there was the Ridley Scott masterpiece conceptualized below.

Here’s a link to Variety’s obit of Mead, sometimes billed (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) as “Meade.”

I was one of the few critics to bother checking out Kevin Hart’s theatrical comedy concert film “Laugh at My Pain” when it opened back in 2011.

He was already a veteran bit player, comic support on TV (Judd Apatow’s “Undeclared”), and movies (“Fool’s Gold,” “40 Year Old Virgin,” “Soul Plane”), so I knew who he was — a reliable laugh in “little man” form. But this stand-up special/theatrical release was blowing up and kind of out of nowhere, so I dropped in.

He jump-started his career with that hilarious doc, and I made it a point to review all his other concert docs that followed — watching his Hollywood profile grow with feature comedies in between tours, seeing the “Yeah, I’m spending money on fire effects for a comedy concert — I’ve sold out!” arc of his fame.

He’s spread himself Steve Harvey thin in the ensuing decade — doing TV, a Sirius/XM and streaming comedy chat show with his crew, and “Ride Along” and “Think Like a Man” big screen hits, buddy comedies galore (“Get Hard,””The Wedding Ringer,””Central Intelligence”).

Then he hit his peak, and hit a brick wall at the same time. It was 2018, and here he was, a superstar about to host the Oscars, when it all came down on him — homophobic stand-up bits, homophobic tweets.The Oscar gig disappears, and that announced plan to remake the urban comedy classic “Uptown Saturday Night?” A movie he was using his clout to create? Stillborn, or in turnaround. Not happening. Yet.

His recent marquee comedies? “Night School?” Underperformed. “The Upside” buddy comedy with Brian Cranston did well. A remake of “The Great Outdoors” is in the works, but he’s more an ensemble guy, now. “Jumanji” is rebuilding his brand. And he has a LOT of TV series he’s sticking his name on.

If the “angry little man” wants to re-launch himself proper, it’s no shock that he’d take a shot at doing it via a “my side of the story” documentary series for Netflix. It’s not the sort of thing I’d burn a lot of time on, but noticing all the hits an old blog entry on him announcing “Uptown Saturday Night” as his next project, I was curious, like the people visiting that link.

What’s the status of that project? And what’s Hart doing to tidy up his image, after his very public “family man” image meltdown, his refusal to apologize about the old tweets and one-liners?

“Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up” offers no apologies, despite his publicist urging “humility,” and no real update on “Uptown.” The series catches Hart at that pre-Oscar/mid-“Irresponsible” tour peak — 2018.

We see him meet and try to talk somebody PRETTY famous into co-starring in “Uptown Saturday Night” with him.

“He’s a f—–g thespian!” Hart jokes, as he’s given the “I have to go away and think about it” brush off.

We see and hear him recording his voice track for “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” watch him multi-task to the point of distraction, maybe neglecting his family because of how driven he is to do it all, manage it all and get filthy rich while the iron is hot.

We hear him talk about his college-educated single mom, the driving inspiration in his life and career, and the fences he’s mended with his recovering-addict father. His mother died, and his dad’s behavior after that glibly made it into his stand-up. But there’s earnest emotion in his fervent desire to please the parent no longer around.

“Look at your boy! See what he did!”

We watch the wife (Eniko) Hart’s assured us is “not a homewrecker” come to tears over the “very public humiliation” of him cheating on her the way he once cheated with her while still married to his first wife. Hart spins that as best he can.

And we see the bad car wreck that he had to recover from to get the full slate of films and TV productions he has on his plate back up and in the works.

The effect of it all is a lot like his decreasingly funny stand-up films. It’s all about spin, polish and flashing wealth — the AMG Mercedes, the selfies with fans gassing up his Ferrari. He’s pushing the idea of how “hungry” he still is, but like his “version” of this and Eniko’s spotlight moments of truth, it all feels focus-grouped and safe.

He’s never been an unlikable presence, but when he justifies his manic money-making juggling as “I’m doing this for you guys,” I just don’t believe him. It’s an ego thing. It’s as sincere as everything else in “Don’t F**k This Up,” as sincere and heartfelt as his non-apology/apologiesduring the Oscars dust-up.

His publicist, Haley Hileman, was never able to get him to “take a humility pill.” His sudden fall didn’t cost him much, not like the car-wreck that he spends much of this series recovering from. But it’s still a good reason why the more we see of him, in person and out of “character,” the less likable he seems.

And the victimhood card he whipped out then, the “struggle” he plays up in all this affluence and success, isn’t a good look. It just isn’t.

Comics are stereotypically needy, damaged souls — and the big ones can be awfully prickly, so he’s not alone in this. Every entertainment journalist has “good Seinfeld” and “bad Seinfeld” interview stories.

But if he’s not doing a real “mea culpa” here, if he’s as insincere as he often comes off, then what is the point? This is six episodes of Hart insincerely trying to convince us of how sincere and humbled he is.

MPAA Rating: unrated, profanity, drug abuse discussed, profanity

Cast: Kevin Hart, Eniko Hart

Credits: A Netflix series (six episodes and counting?)

Running time: @31 minutes each.