“The Man From Toronto” struggles throughout the entire film to establish a consistent tone. It feels determined to be a serious spy thriller, but it also seems like it’s aiming to be an outright comedy. That’s not to say those two things can’t go together — they can — but “The Man From Toronto” never makes the balance palatable. Hart’s character Teddy is always cracking jokes and delivering one-liners, but nobody around him ever seems to notice, letting his lines just linger in the ether, rendering the punch lines dead on arrival. Things do improve when Harrelson and Hart’s characters finally get together, and their chemistry is really strong, but a lackluster script lets them down at every opportunity. It has running gags that were only moderately funny in the first instance (looking at you, non-contact boxing), but these gags are repeated, ad nauseam, to the point that what should be a rewarding payoff doesn’t land. That’s to say nothing of the story itself, which takes a fun scenario and does nothing original or creative with it, relying instead on tired plot beats you’ve seen before, done better elsewhere.

The city of Toronto has an interesting relationship with cinema. Many studios flock to the Canadian city and surrounding areas to film to take advantage of tax breaks, but the city is used as a stand-in for other American cities like New York City and Chicago. As someone born and raised in a town not far from Toronto, I was excited to see the great city take center stage for once. I should have known better, as the city is featured as itself in exactly three quick shots before it later becomes a stand-in for an American city once again.

There’s really no reason the film can’t have big moments occurring in Toronto, as the actual plot is so anonymous that its paint-by-numbers approach would work the same in any location. Once again, the lack of attention to detail rears its ugly head, as the city name is mispronounced time and time again — excusable when your main character isn’t from the city, but when Harrelson is literally the Man from Toronto, the least they could do is realize that nobody pronounces the second “T.”