Before looking at six shows individually, something I noticed about the slate as a whole: almost none of these shows take advantage of their format. The structure feels like a bug instead of a feature. Most of these high-profile shows do almost nothing in terms of episodic storytelling, coming off more like a 100-minute film that’s just been broken up into pieces. There’s a big difference between presenting viewers with short episodes that feel satisfying on their own and just chopping up a feature film and feeding it to viewers one bite at a time. The purpose of the latter eludes me.
Most of all, the writing just isn’t there for most of these shows, which universally feel like they started with budget and cast before considering concept or story. Get famous faces and talented directors on Quibi and the people will sign up, right? Not if you don’t give your talents good scripts to work with. There are a lot of talented people involved in Quibi original programming, but I felt like most of them weren’t given enough to do.
“Die Hart”
Advertised all over the NBA Restart, this comedy feels like arguably the biggest Quibi offering to date, at least in terms of exposure. Worldwide star Kevin Hart plays a version of himself, a comedy actor known for acting alongside action hunks but never getting to play the leading man in an action movie himself. After getting the attention of a high-profile genre director (Jean Reno), Hart goes to an action acting school run by someone who may be actually trying to hurt our favorite comedy star, played by John Travolta. It’s all an excuse for Hart to show off his physical comedy skills in a narrative that echoes something like “The Truman Show” at its best with a hero who isn’t quite sure if what he’s doing is real or acting.
Like almost everything on the service, “Die Hart” clearly began life as an actual film concept, but there’s not enough meat on the bones here to justify a studio production. Late plot twists and a fun supporting turn from Josh Hartnett aside, this would be too thin for most Kevin Hart films, and so it’s been chopped up and put on Quibi. There are some undeniably funny beats, but this is one of several Quibi shows that doesn’t feel quite like a series or quite like a movie, lost in an uncanny content valley in the middle. Yes, maybe Quibi is trying to find something in between, but I can’t imagine their goal is merely to replicate the format of a comedy feature film with credit breaks every 8-9 minutes. The result doesn’t feel like a complete project as much as spending the day watching clips on YouTube from a movie that you’re not sure you want to pay to see in its entirety.
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