There is no denying that Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart are the two most popular big screen comedians at the moment, so it was only a matter of time till they would team up. And on paper, Get Hard must have seemed like the perfect vehicle for the pair, with Ferrell as James King, a prison bound hedge fund manager who hires his car washer Darnell (Hart) to train him to survive, all on the assumption that Darnell has served time. Which he hasn't. It is a premise that has some great comedy potential, but first time director Etan Cohen (not that one) wastes it all and fills his movie with a string of offensive, stale, and downright stupid gags.
For the two big names on the poster, Get Hard is really a waste of their talents. They fall back into tired old routines, Ferrell pulling out his idiot man child persona for what feels like the millionth time, while Hart is the unstoppable motormouth, spouting racist and homophobic jibes a mile a minute. The movie seems far too comfortable relying on offensive stereotypes, and jokes that may have elicited an awkward titter at the start soon end up just grating on you, especially when everything comes back to James' fear of being raped (if for some reason it seems like a good idea, a perfect double bill would be this and Rob Schneider's Big Stan). By the time Hart launches into a routine where he switches between the numerous stereotypes found in the prison yard, I found myself checking out. The story is almost non-existent, and is just there so Darnell's 'hilarious' plan can come into being. You can almost see the moment when the screen writers realised they had to wrap the movie up, and it's conceit is dropped immediately to deliver an ending that feels like it was dragged kicking and screaming from the 80's.
For a comedy, Get Hard mostly a humourless affair, which is a huge shame, since, as a screenwriter, Cohen has had a hand in my favorite comedies of recent years, namely Tropic Thunder and Idiocracy. I have to admit there are some gems to be found in Get Hard when it puts energy into exploring its premise. James' house being transformed int a make shift San Quentin, complete with the house staff playing the guards, raises a few chuckles, leading to probably the movie's best scene where James is caught up in a simulated prison riot. But that soon fizzles out and closes out with a gag taken from Old School, and is followed up with Darnell trying to pass off Boyz In the Hood as his own life. Because that hasn't being done before.
Lazy and offensive, any potential Get Hard had is flushed away pretty quickly, leaving us with a finished product that is a frustrating waste of all the talents involved.
For the two big names on the poster, Get Hard is really a waste of their talents. They fall back into tired old routines, Ferrell pulling out his idiot man child persona for what feels like the millionth time, while Hart is the unstoppable motormouth, spouting racist and homophobic jibes a mile a minute. The movie seems far too comfortable relying on offensive stereotypes, and jokes that may have elicited an awkward titter at the start soon end up just grating on you, especially when everything comes back to James' fear of being raped (if for some reason it seems like a good idea, a perfect double bill would be this and Rob Schneider's Big Stan). By the time Hart launches into a routine where he switches between the numerous stereotypes found in the prison yard, I found myself checking out. The story is almost non-existent, and is just there so Darnell's 'hilarious' plan can come into being. You can almost see the moment when the screen writers realised they had to wrap the movie up, and it's conceit is dropped immediately to deliver an ending that feels like it was dragged kicking and screaming from the 80's.
For a comedy, Get Hard mostly a humourless affair, which is a huge shame, since, as a screenwriter, Cohen has had a hand in my favorite comedies of recent years, namely Tropic Thunder and Idiocracy. I have to admit there are some gems to be found in Get Hard when it puts energy into exploring its premise. James' house being transformed int a make shift San Quentin, complete with the house staff playing the guards, raises a few chuckles, leading to probably the movie's best scene where James is caught up in a simulated prison riot. But that soon fizzles out and closes out with a gag taken from Old School, and is followed up with Darnell trying to pass off Boyz In the Hood as his own life. Because that hasn't being done before.
Lazy and offensive, any potential Get Hard had is flushed away pretty quickly, leaving us with a finished product that is a frustrating waste of all the talents involved.
