The worst criticism a film can get is “harmless.” When a film is just “harmless,” it’s stale, voiceless, and generally fails to make a lasting impression. A harmless film exists, takes 90-100 minutes of your life, and then you’ll never mention it again. Get Hard is that kind of film.
A regressive and bland comedy that pretty much delivers the same plot from Malibu’s Most Wanted and hopes to grab your attention with d**cks and f**cks. And as much as Get Hard wants to be the offensive comedy of the season, there’s not enough new humor here to even care.
Get Hard
Director: Etan Cohen
Release Date: March 27th, 2015
Rating: R
Wall Street millionaire James King (Will Ferrell) was on the top of the world. He just made partner at his company, lives in a huge house, is engaged to a beautiful woman, and was sentenced to ten years in prison for embezzlement. With only 30 days to get his affairs in order, he asks for help from Darnell (Kevin Hart), a guy who owns a struggling car washing business and wants to get his family out of the hood, to “get hard” for prison life.
Usually these plot synopsis paragraphs take a bit more space, but Get Hard has nothing else to work with. This razor thin premise, which would seem more at home on a 22 minute TV sitcom, doesn’t really evolve. It does pretty much what you would expect it to, doesn’t reinvent the wheel nor break it down, and you can accurately predict what’s going to happen if you’ve ever seen one of these films before. But what Get Hard does get right, however, is the thin premise allows Hart and Ferrell to play to their improvisational strengths. Once you get passed all of the jokes you’ve heard before, there’s some goodness underneath.
I’m usually the last person to defend Kevin Hart, but he definitely earns his paycheck here. A lot of the film’s humor stems from his commitment to the bit, and he carries the brunt of the weight here. I don’t know if it’s due to age, or if he doesn’t like where his career has gone, but Will Ferrell just isn’t here for this one. Turning out a performance I can only describe as “tired,” his lethargic delivery never elevates his hasbeen material. Maybe it’s because Ferrell realized too late that he was working with an inadequate script, but he just seemed so tuned out. That’s why Kevin Hart, with his always effective energy regardless of whether or not his humor is on point, commands so much attention. Yet, it’s very depressing to see him flounder around so much for virtually no gain. It’s like fighting for air in a vacuum: lots of struggling that only suffocates faster.
As for the film’s offensive premise, it’s very ineffective. Refusing to push far in any direction, it relies on stereotypical jokes throughout. I’ll give the film credit for noting why street gangs can recruit many disadvantaged kids, but it’s buried underneath blackface and rape jokes. Seriously, I couldn’t keep track of how many times the word “dick” was used, or how many references to anal sex there were. I’m no prude, nor do I care when a film pushes the envelope, but doing so has to result in a good laugh. Resting on the same cheap gags but adding a vulgar twist is not enough to keep folks invested. I’ll admit that Get Hard did get a laugh out of me during Ferrell’s creative put downs (“Are you at Costco? Because you’re getting this dick in bulk!”), but a few laughs out of the film’s hundred or so attempts are horrible odds.
At the end of the day, I don’t care how loudly offensive Get Hard is. It’s boring, dry, and sets back the comedic landscape a few years. This is the kind of film you would’ve seen ten or twenty years ago before we knew any better. As Kevin Hart continues to rise in popularity, and Will Ferrell is on his way out, you can gauge the kind of desperate situation that brought these two together to beat a dead horse.
The worst part of it all is, T.I. was the best actor in this. F**king T.I.
