Get Hard

My Grade:  B

When I first heard Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart were teaming up for a film, I was stoked. I have been a long time fan of Ferrell and I have recently gotten into Kevin Hart’s stand-up comedy. He’s hilarious on stage but I hadn’t seen many of his movies (his cameo in The 40-Year-Old-Virgin is one of the best scenes of that film), so I wasn’t sure how well his stand-up would translate to a narrative film. It turns out that this comedic pairing is outstanding. 

Get Hard follows millionaire James King (Ferrell) as he is arrested for fraud. The judge is tired of seeing white collar criminals do easy time in fluffy, low-security prisons, so he sentences King to do hard time in San Quentin. Rightfully terrified that he won’t do well in such a place, King turns to the guy who washes his car, Darnell Lewis (Hart) to prepare him to survive in prison. Lewis has a clean record and is by no means a thug, but King assumes (because he’s black and poor) that he has been to prison. Needing some money to get his daughter to a better, safer school, Lewis agrees to be King’s incarceration preparedness trainer. They have thirty days before King gets locked up, so they have to hurry. Comedic hijinks ensue, as you may expect.

As with most comedies of this nature, many of the major plot points are highly unrealistic. I can’t fault Get Hard for this because it’s a comedy and comedies are supposed to go a little beyond reality. Some of it is a little too out there, though. And, the “surprising twist” they throw at you in the end is hardly a surprise. You see it coming a mile away.

Intricate plots and mind-blowing twists aren’t what this kind of film is about, though. It’s about farming its outlandish premise for every possible laugh. And it succeeds in that effort. This movie is hilarious. Ferrell and Hart play off each other incredibly well with impeccable timing. Their vastly different looks play nicely on screen as well. Even the supporting characters add a good many laughs including rapper T.I. whom I have never liked in a film before this one.

The most surprising thing about this film, though, is Hart. From the little bit I’ve seen of him in films, he yells through a lot of his performances and is at his best when being a hyperactive ball of energy and (usually) anger. In Get Hard, though, he gives a much more grounded performance adding layers of nuance to his comedy that I hadn’t seen before. It’s something that makes me want to watch him lead in more movies instead of just popping in for a quick, side-splittingly hilarious cameo.

Overall, Get Hard is not a comedy classic but it does what it’s supposed to do:  make you laugh for almost all of its 100 minute runtime. If you can handle a good bit of bad language and a lot of not-so-politically-correct comedy, then this is a good one to check out.