Get Hard (2015)

Get Hard (2015)

4/10

Starring

Will Ferrell

Kevin Hart

Directed by Etan Cohen

Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t find Kevin Hart funny. He’s an over-celebrated actor. Now, pair him with Will Ferrell, whose comedy style revolves around being oblivious to his surroundings and acting silly, and you have a film with so much overacting that it could be spread over three movies.

I sometimes see movies and wonder how the plot of the movie got to the point where it was greenlit for production. For me, Will Ferrell’s great days were in Old School (2003) and Anchorman (2004). After that, the only other time I enjoyed him was in Stranger Than Fiction (2006), where he played a serious role, and the comedy came from the script.
When it comes to actors who have to be funny to make me laugh, these two rank low for me. With that in mind, this movie wasn’t funny—it was dreadful.

The idea of a man learning to be tough so he won’t be anally raped in prison could have been funny if the movie didn’t rely so heavily on the actors to force the jokes. Etan Cohen used this movie for his grand directorial debut, and I wish he’d just stuck to writing. Etan’s writing credits go back to Beavis and Butt-head in the ’90s and other movies like Tropic Thunder (2008), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), and Men in Black 3 (2012).

As for the screenplay and writing, this movie could have been done better. Here, we have James King (Will Ferrell), an extremely wealthy fund manager who’s dating his boss’s daughter. She pushes him to make more money to secure their future.
On the other side, we have Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart), a car washer who dreams of expanding his business if he can secure some funds.

Darnell washes James’ car daily and approaches him for the money to grow his car wash business, but James turns him down.
During James and his fiancée’s engagement party (with John Mayer in attendance), James gets arrested and is convicted of embezzlement (which he’s innocent of). He’s sentenced to 10 years in prison and has 30 days to prepare. He hires Darnell to train him to be tough so he won’t become someone’s b*#ch in jail.

The overuse of gay and racial jokes makes this movie more of a drag than fun. Despite that, the movie was a box office hit, which makes me wonder why people tolerate crap like this.