GET HARD – The Review

It’s team-up time for twin titans of comedy once again . Actually one of the stars of this new film was attempting this just a couple of months ago. The in-danger-of-over-saturation star Kevin Hart made an attempt to broaden his fan base by joining up with another rising comic star, Josh Gad, In the modest hit (couldn’t have cost that much) THE WEDDING RINGER. Well it certainly worked for Kevin’s comic predecessors Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Chris Tucker. But this time out he’s truly going for it, making a run for the comedy big leagues, by teaming with an established superstar of laugh-filled flicks, Will Ferrell (sure he’s had some duds, but when he scores, he scores big). And this new film takes some hot-button current topics, and gives them a spin that may remind you of certain Pryor and Murphy classics. So, let’s see if some farcical fireworks spark between these two as Kevin helps teach Will that the only way to survive the big house is to GET HARD.

In the opening moments we’re introduced to these two men almost at the opposite ends of the economic spectrum. James King (Ferrell) is living the ole’ “life of Reilly” at a big LA investment company. His home is a huge Beverly Hills mansion which he shares with his gorgeous fiancée Alissa (Alison Brie). At work, it looks like his boss Martin (Craig T. Nelson), who’s also his future father-in-law, is going to make him partner. Things aren’t quite as sweet for Darnell Lewis (Hart), who’s trying to scrape together the needed cash to send his pre-teen daughter to a private, and much safer, school. He just needs another thirty grand. Darnell operates a small car wash inside the parking garage of Martin’s office. He tries to interest James in getting a private car wash club card (guess the cost), but the oblivious James doesn’t bite. Then King’s world comes crashing down. FBI agents arrest him during his lavish birthday party on a charge of investment fraud. Martin’s lawyer implores him to take the plea deal and do a year sentence at a country-club type of correctional facility. James declines, believing that the jury will see that he’s completely innocent. Nope, and so the judge decides to make an example of him, and sentences James to ten years at San Quentin, starting in just a few short weeks. When he runs into Darnell again he implores him to become his paid coach in surviving “the joint’ (since he’s black and the percentages are…you know). After calming down after the insult, the law-abiding Darnell takes the gig (again, guess his fee). As the clock ticks down to the “big house” the two bond and it becomes clear to Darnell that James is indeed innocent, and there’s no way that James will survive SQ.

Ferrell, once again, totally commits to a comic character whether loopily lunging as part of his training in “South American martial arts” or ignoring a gruesome head wound (painfully hysterical). James King has little of the doofus aggression of Ron Burgundy or Chaz Michaels from BLADES OF GLORY while having just a bit of the sheltered guilelessness of Buddy the Elf. Most of all, Ferrell’s still got that endless comic energy from some of his best work even in the service of this hit-or-miss script. Thankfully his skills encourage Hart to up his game and not rely so heavily on his usual motor-mouthed con man. His tightly wound energy bounces off well from Ferrell’s low-key panic. This is especially evident in one training sequence that requires Hart to portray three different prison gangsters accosting James on “the yard”. We also get to see him as a dedicated family man. Here he gets great support in those domestic scenes from Edwina Finley Dickerson as his no-nonsense spouse and Ariana Neal as his precocious daughter. Ferrell too gets a great female sparing partner with Brie (so great in TV’s “Mad Men” and “Community”) as the ultimate spoiled “trophy” fiancée, it’s a shame she disappears for much of the film’s mid-section. Nelson makes a formidable “boss/poppa”, but Greg Germann as his shifty shyster is underused, as are “Daily Show” and “Veep” vets Dan Bakkedahl and Matt Walsh in too brief cameos.

First-time feature director Etan Cohen tries to keep the plot’s momentum rolling along, working from the script he collaborated on with three other writers(!). This may account for the film’s disjointed quality, giving it a “pieced together” tone as if we’re “binge-viewing” the first four episodes of a very raunchy made-for-premium-cable-TV comedy series. It’s the pilot followed by an ep about self defense, then submitting, etc., etc. It doesn’t help that the story completely shifts into detective-mode in the film’s last act with Darnell suddenly becoming a compact melding of the Hardy Boys and the latest “CSI” spin-off. Then there’s the general reliance on heterosexual panic for most of the film. The makers wish to wring as many laughs as possible about the probability of James getting “man-handled” as soon as he walks through the prison gate. Then the writers try to dodge the homophobic vibes during another training scene (James must learn to submit and ‘service’) by having Darnell start up a friendship with a confused gay suitor. Sorry fellas’, you don’t get a pass that easily. And when things get slow, they’ll put Ferrell in goofy street fashions for some easy “fish out of water” gags. And, of course, we’ve got to exploit the whole “Mutt and Jeff” size difference, by having too many bits with James using a “Darnell barbel” during endless training montages. This might have been long after they gave up in attempting a modern-day riff on TRADING PLACES. Fans of the two leads should enjoy this pairing of comic styles, but these guys should get better flicks than GET HARD. Cell block, lights out!

3 out of 5