Will Ferrell is back on the big screen with his latest hoot. Get Hard is the directorial debut of Etan Cohen, a screenwriter who has worked on such scripts as Tropic Thunder and Men in Black 3 (not to be confused with director Ethan Coen).
It follows the story of James King (Will Ferrell) an extremely well off hedge fund manager who finds himself on the wrong side of the law. With an impending jail sentence looming he seeks help from car wash manager Darnel Lewis (Kevin Hart) but Darnel isn’t the hardened criminal King thinks he is. In fact he’s just an average working family man trying to get by in life – hilarity ensues. Or at least it should have…
On paper the combination of Farrell and Hart should be something magnificent, a throwback to the likes of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in a similar vein to their hit film Stir Crazy, unfortunately this is not the case even despite the fact that Farrell and Hart do seem to have great chemistry.
Get Hard hit UK cinemas in April 2015.
The writing falls flat relying on clichéd and stale jokes but this isn’t to say that Get Hard doesn’t have its moments, there are parts of the film that legitimately made me laugh. In particular there is a scene where Hart, in preparing Farrell for life in the yard, plays three different inmates who, in a performance full of energy, get into a full scale face off about the future of the new meat. There’s also the kind of surrealist improvised riffs we’ve come to expect from Ferrell and when he delivers these you can see why he’s one of Hollywood’s top funny men.
The problem is that these scenes are in the minority and the majority are overused cultural, racist and homophobic stereotypes – the type we’ve all seen a million times before. Despite what seems to be a conscious effort from the director to use them as a critique about cultural stereotyping and racism, it just comes off as uninspired.
Go beyond the lacklustre jokes though and there’s a genuine progression between the two main characters as we see them becoming closer as friends, the points where Hart and Ferrell are sparring and playfully riff off each other make sense and give the movie a hidden depth.
Kevin Hart has shown that he is capable of more than just being cast as the friend in films and has the shoulders to hold his own in a comedy role when up against any other heavyweights.
All in all Get Hard is an okay film with a few prime moments that’ll have you in stitches, but is unfortunately bogged down with lazy writing and boring stereotypes.
Author – Hal, Plymouth store
