None of this is remotely believable because the screenplay by Robbie Fox and Chris Bremner consistently has Teddy saying and doing things that no one in his position would be dumb enough to do.
Meanwhile, the FBI is keeping Lori busy by having her dragged on shopping sprees and spa visits by a sexy male agent she believes is acting on Teddy’s behalf. For reasons I don’t have enough word count to explain, the FBI is also pressuring Teddy to put himself in harm’s way. Through tenets of Roger Ebert’s Idiot Plot theory, TMFT is stuck with Teddy as he maneuvers his way through the hitman story. All Hell breaks loose, as expected, when the real deal shows up. Unfortunately, Teddy’s mistake leads him to the one cabin in Onancock, Virginia that contains someone The Man From Toronto was supposed to torture. People say “low toner” so many times in “The Man from Toronto” that a drinking game could be based on it. Thanks to “low toner” in his printer, Teddy misidentifies the address of the cabin he has rented for Lori’s birthday excursion. This brings us to the mistaken identity plot.
Of course, the high stakes on his current attempt will be made even higher. Teddy is so incompetent he can’t even do a simple task like planning a special evening for his wife’s birthday. Marty is also old-he thinks it’s the dumbest idea he’s ever heard. Back in my amateur training days, we called it “shadow boxing,” but what do I know? I’m an old man and woefully out of touch with the ideas of today’s young whippersnappers. Teddy wants to promote “no-contact” boxing, a cardio workout where people throw punches but no one gets hit. Lori thinks her man’s latest idea has merit, which makes me question her common sense. Teddy’s latest pitch is to his boxing ring boss, Marty, who has kept him on despite the fact the marketing brochures Teddy made don’t mention the address of the gym. We see her husband repeatedly “teddying” in the sequence of YouTube workout videos that open “The Man From Toronto.” At least Hart is diesel enough to pull off playing a guy advertising weight training items like the “TeddyBand” (which pops and slaps him in the face) and the “TeddyBar,” a pull-up rack whose workout consists of its user being accidentally crushed under the falling equipment. He is such a screwup that his patient, loving wife, Lori ( Jasmine Mathews) tells him her firm uses his name to describe when someone botches something. The underachiever story comes from Teddy. So much for the darkly comic hitman thriller plot element. The Miami guy (Pierson Fode), first seen beating a man to death with a golf club, seems to have a pre-existing beef that keeps him turning up every so often like a bad penny. These guys have massive egos and apparently live in the shadow of their Canadian co-worker. She’ll eventually call on them when she thinks her man in Toronto has gone rogue. The Handler (as she is credited) has men in other locations: Miami, Tokyo, Moscow, and so on. The Man From Toronto takes orders from a woman his phone refers to as the “Handler.” The film initially plays coy with her identity, but her distinctive voice immediately identifies the actor who plays her. The story works-the guy confesses and is granted a much quicker death than his silence would have bought. Pleading for mercy once the torture begins will have no effect any empathy the hitman had died on that frozen lake. The bear made mincemeat of Grandpa while his grandson watched from afar. See, when he was a young boy being raised “on a frozen lake 500 miles from nowhere,” his grandfather was suddenly attacked by a grizzly bear. Hired to extract information by any means necessary, The Man From Toronto (as he is credited) displays an impressive array of cutlery in front of his prey before monologuing his origin story. We see him plying his trade in an early scene. Baldheaded Woody Harrelson plays the titular Torontonian, a very effective hitman whose vicious reputation for torturing precedes him.