What more could you want from a comedy? Anyone who is familiar with both Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell should automatically guess you’re going to get a silly, laugh out loud caper.
But is this film one we’ve all seen before or have these boys brought something fresh to our screens? I fully expected to hate this film but I put my hands up and actually enjoyed myself.
James King (Will Ferrell) is a delusional millionaire hedge fund manager who very quickly gets nailed for fraud and after a court finds him guilty is looking at a stretch in San Quentin; the judge gives him 30 days to get his affairs in order. Desperate, he turns to Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) to help him prepare for a life behind bars. But despite James’ blinkered assumption that he is black so he must have been to jail, Darnell is a hard-working small business owner who has never received a parking ticket, let alone been to prison.
Together, the two men do whatever it takes for James to “get hard” and, in the process, discover how wrong they were about a lot of things – including each other.
With a lot of these satirical comedies you find that the first 70% of the film has all the best funny moments and then you hit a dip and it ends up getting all soppy at the end with a few good jokes thrown in for good measure. Get Hard is not one of these films THANK GOD! Finally we have a comedy that keeps the momentum going throughout the whole film; it doesn’t cram in all the best jokes at the beginning but evens it out quite perfectly. Some might actually say the gags are tired and offensive, I say take your PC head’s out of your backsides and just enjoy it for what it is.
Yes, the storyline is fresh, even though it is laced with racism and homophobia, Hart’s character for one is stuck on the idea of the fear of being Gang raped in prison and we even have a scene where both guys are having a coffee in a known gay establishment where Darnell gets James to “cruise” and learn how to “suck dick” in quite graphic detail. We then witness James, a white man who has no street smarts, make one stereotypical judgement about black people after another, even dressing like Lil Wayne when faced with a meeting with a known highly dangerous criminal and his gang. But despite this it has a warm heart and really you know it wasn’t intentionally made to offend but to make you laugh.
Ferrell and Hart’s films are usually quite lazy, but this pairing works so well, their comic timing, chemistry on screen (who doesn’t like to see a bromance blossom) and the fact that Ferrell stands at 6ft 3in and Hart 5ft 4in seem to just work. We also get to witness T.I. play Darnell’s gangster cousin, bringing quite a sexy yet scary element to his character.
If you want to make comparisons then think, the 80’s film Trading Places but a hell of a lot cruder and not quite as smart but overall, you may not approve ethically of this films content but it’s just a fun, enjoyable film.
