Review of Get Hard (2015) by Maksim B — 03 Jul 2015

A naughty, sometimes offending and quite generic comedy, Get Hard is typical Will Ferrell/Kevin Hart delivery which hugely relies on the raunchiness of its two leading actors instead of focusing on the wonderful premises it has. With a badly crafted story, Get Hard could only offer racially and socially offending gags without any originality in the humor presented.

It is sad to say, but the story is actually an intriguing one and if director Etan Cohen had worked a bit more on the its development (after all, he is the screenwriter behind Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder and Men in Black III), his movie would have become a comedy to fully enjoy. James King (Will Ferrell) is a successful, but childish financial trader who gets convicted in fault financial play and gets sentenced to ten years in prison. With one month to get into prison he needs to prepare for the tough inmate life he is going to face. That is why he hires the overly-energetic Kevin Hart, a car-wash owner pretending to be an ex-con, who is to teach Mr. King how to survive in jail. As mentioned, the premises are quite intriguing, but the director Etan Cohen limits himself to showing what we all know about Ferrell and Hart. The man-child behavior of Ferrell and the raunchy, hyper-active and loud behavior of Hart are exploited to a level that we all have already seen in other movies. What is worse, they are exploited not to deliver something original, but more of the same type of offending, racist, homophobic gags that you have already seen in dozens of other similar comedies.

Indeed, some of those gags would make you smile or even laugh, but given the potential of the story, Get Hard is a major disappointment. Watchable for a mindless evening when you want to see a no-brainer, but nothing more.