Kevin Hart - playing a version of himself - is on a death-defying quest to become an action star. And with a little help from John Travolta, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Josh Hartnett - he just might pull it off.
Kevin Hart was not happy with the image people had of him. He wanted people to look at him as a serious actor who knew the craft well, but instead, he just became the funny guy who played second fiddle to the main protagonist. There was a lot of anger inside Hart, and he was constantly telling his agent, Danny (Brandon Quinn), that he thought that he had the potential to be a great action hero. Hart had a lot of confidence in his abilities and didn't consider himself any lesser than Dwanye The Rock Johnson or Jackie Chan, his action protagonists on the movies he does.
Things got out of hand when Kevin decided to address the issue during one of the talk shows where he was coming to market his present release. Something snapped inside Kevin (when the hosts Mikey (Jason Jones) and Leah (Milana Vayntrub) says that there is a rumor that Kevin is afraid of squirrels), and he no longer cared what the studio wanted him to do or what would be beneficial for his career. He started speaking about how he had been typecast by the industry, and he was desperate to break that image and explore new pastures.Danny knew that Hart's action would have severe consequences, and he had already started doing damage control. In the middle of all the chaos, contrary to expectations of Danny, Claude Van De Velde (Jean Reno) gave him a call and asked if Kevin wanted to play the role of an action hero in his film. Danny didn't understand why Claude was doing what he was doing, but he knew that it was an opportunity that Kevin needed to grab at all costs. The studio had already started removing him from the posters of his film, and Danny was of the opinion that they were extremely lucky that Van De Velde had seen something inside Kevin and decided to work with him.
A hopeful Kevin went to meet Claude Velde, and the ace director suggested that he attend Ron Wilcox's (John Travolta) action star school. Kevin didn't think that he needed to attend any such training program because he believed himself to be a natural. Claude persistently told him that, be it Matt Damon or Tom Cruise, they had become so successful in what they did and come to be known as the greatest of all time only because they had gotten proper training at Ron Wilcox's school. But Kevin wanted to prove to the director that he didn't need to go to any school to be able to execute action sequences. Claude Velde told him that if he could complete the task that he was about to give him, he would believe that he didn't need any training. Claude asked Kevin to jump from one terrace to another, and the latter almost broke his bones while trying to do the stunt. Kevin failed miserably, and he had no option but to go to the training school, which was situated in the middle of nowhere.
Kevin was desperate to change the perception that people had of him. From the moment Kevin arrives, he is persistently pursued by a squirrel, which shows up everywhere that Kevin is.Kevin arrives with 2 goons threatening Ron Wilcox for their money and accusing him of killing Rodrigo. Kevin believes that this is part of his training and challenges the goons to a fight. He is promptly hit in the face with a metal bat.When he regains consciousness, Ron tells him that the school was a slaughterhouse, till the animals turned and slaughtered the humans instead.Ron Wilcox had strict rules in his school that everyone needed to follow. Mobile phones were not allowed inside the campus, no fornication of any kind and Kevin was given strict instructions to only respond when he was called by the name 'Agent Hart.' Ron had a theory that the name of the person was important in building his profile in the eyes of the public. He said that for being an action hero, the name should exude a kind of strength, something like Ethan Hunt, and he felt that nobody would believe that a guy named Kevin could be a great action hero who was going to save the world.
Ron also believed that the first thing that any action hero needed to learn was how to save a person stuck inside a burning building. He had created a set inside his training camp, and he decided to put Kevin to the test. He started a fire and asked Kevin to go and save the mannequin that bore an uncanny resemblance to Kevin, though Ron didn't agree that it looked like him. Jordan King (Nathalie Emmanuel) is an aspiring action actress also attending the training. Ron had told Kevin that he would come and save him if he got stuck, but then Ron got so engrossed in talking to Jordan that he forgot that he had to go and save Kevin. Kevin's flame-retardant FBI jacket wasn't able to save him, and he was barely able to survive and came out all bruised and burned.
Kevin was attracted to Jordan from the moment he saw her, though the latter had made it very clear that she just wanted to focus on her training and join the extremely small list of female action stars. Ron started putting Kevin and Jordan into hypothetical situations where they had to complete the tasks and improvise where they felt the need to. Kevin found it quite illogical that every time they were given backstories that explained the motivations, he was told to do something completely absurd and impossible. One time Kevin was asked to attack Jordan with a retractable knife, but he ended up hurting her because it was a real knife. He didn't understand why Ron was lying to him and making him risk his and Jordan's lives.Kevin was told that his situation was still better than Jason Statham's, who had been stabbed in the heart and survived. The thought of giving up had crossed Kevin's mind more than once, but he just didn't want to be a goofy sidekick throughout his life, and he wanted to prove to the world that he had much more to offer.
It was Claude Velde's plan to make Kevin achieve the impossible feat and keep filming him without letting him know. Claude wanted real emotions on screen, and he knew that he could extract those only if Kevin felt that he was actually in some kind of danger. Claude knew that Kevin was in a very fragile state of mind. Claude wanted an actor harboring deep-rooted insecurities because he believed that only such a man could give him that kind of response when out in danger.Meanwhile, Kevin believes that Ron is trying to kill him. He and Jordan enter Ron's office at night and steal a box from his drawers. He finds a necklace inside the box, spelling RBG. He believes that the R stands for Rodrigo, who is the guy the 2 men at the beginning accused Ron of murdering.
The next day, Josh Harnett joins the sets. Kevin tries to tell Josh about the Rodrigo theory, but Josh pretends that he doesn't understand anything. Ron claims that the RBG necklace belongs to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the retired justice of the Supreme Court.The next scene is a shootout for which everybody is issued guns. But Ron wont confirm whether the guns are carrying blanks or live rounds.
Kevin decided to escape because he knew that if he stayed, Ron would kill him. Kevin met a mysterious man in the woods, and he went inside his trailer to call his manager and tell him about everything that had happened there. The man was repairing his car when the car jack collapsed, and the man got stuck beneath. Kevin came out of the trailer after hearing his screams, and he managed to lift the car and save the man's life. The man called Kevin a real-life Rambo, and that's when it struck Kevin that maybe he was not as bad as he had presumed. No doubt he was petrified of squirrels, but he was capable of lifting heavy weights and, more importantly, saving lives. Kevin once again went back to the action star training school, and he was put to the test for one final time.Unknown to Kevin, this entire sequence was also staged and filmed without his knowledge.
Claude made a group of men attack the facility, and Kevin was made to feel once again that the threat was real. He saw them kill Josh Hartnett right in front of his eyes, and Ron and Jordan realized that Claude was probably improvising at the last moment because they also weren't informed about somebody actually dying.Ron told Kevin that they were dangerous men who were after him because a drug deal had gone wrong, and he had murdered the nephew (Rodrigo) of a drug lord. Kevin asked him to muster the courage and confront his fears. Kevin felt even more petrified when he saw them killing Ron, but still, he didn't give up. He kept fighting even when the odds were against him. He fought the actors who pretended to be members of a drug cartel and overcame his fears. Kevin and Jordan escape the school after fighting and beating 2 goons. But Jordan is shot by the third goon waiting outside. Kevin sees the squirrel and imitates it to get the squirrel to attack the 3rd goon. With that distraction, Kevin is able to attack and beat the last goon as well.He thought he had lost Jordan when Claude and the entire crew, who had been filming Kevin secretly up until then, came out in the open. They applauded him, and for a moment, he was not able to ascertain what was happening to him.
The film came out, and it was exactly how Claude had intended it to be. It was the strangest movie that the people had ever seen, but they still loved it because they hadn't seen anything as raw and unadulterated as it. Kevin finally became the leading man of his own action movie, and the feeling was unparalleled. But the experience had brought a change in his sensibilities, and he realized that an actor was nothing without his co-stars. The celebration began, and the film was declared a hit, but once again, Kevin's limelight was stolen by another co-actor. This time, it was a squirrel, not a human, who saved the day, and everyone thought the rodent was the real action hero.
