Get Hard, even the title is a dick joke. Dick jokes compose about 90% of the material in the movie; it’s sad really. The best way to describe the over usage of genitalia humor is this; it’s as if they believe they have discovered an untapped well full of crass penile themed comedy and they are unveiling it to the world. To the writers of the film; you are not the first to come up with these kinds of jokes so try something else, please. I don’t mind raunchy comedies (I enjoy them quite a bit) unless they are pointlessly filthy. It’s not that I get offended I just don’t get the R rated humor for the sake of getting an R rating. The people behind this sad excuse of a comedy created something that is raunchy without any sense of intelligence. Shock comedy with zero message, zero heart, and repetitive jokes is not the recipe for great comedy. It’s the easy route to big money during the opening weekend.
The buddy comedy is yet another trope that Get Hard leans on and it simply doesn’t work. It’s not that there’s a lack of chemistry between Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell it’s that both actors are the same characters they play in every other movie they’re ever in. Neither actor has a shining moment worthy of mentioning. Both turn in performances that earned them a paycheck and not much else. Immediately after it was over I couldn’t possibly repeat a single joke from the movie. There was a period of at least thirty minutes where I never laughed once and a large majority of the “funnier” moments are in the trailer. This is nothing but rehashed, boring material that’s been done in thirty other comedies and its characters are just as flat and predictable as the story itself. I would guess that most people can predict the ending to this movie; if you’ve predicted how it ends you’re probably right.
Ferrell is the typical rich white man archetype that has been seen many times before. Hart is the poor, hardworking black man that despite his financial situation is a far better human than Ferrell’s character. When Ferrell is found guilty of typical Wall Street white collar crimes, he hires the assumed prison attendee Hart to teach him how to survive his ten year sentence in a maximum security prison. Of course Ferrell can’t adapt to the prison training that Hart is making up on the spot. Hart never went to prison and Ferrell’s assumption that he did is a racist joke that is almost as prominent as the penis jokes… almost. As you may have figured though Ferrell begins to learn and takes on the role of a hardened (pun) inmate ready to strike. Different in every way, they eventually learn that maybe the similarities between them are greater than they could have ever realized and so of course a friendship forms and rainbows stretch across the sky and all is right in the end. Yawn.
The best moment of the entire film happens in the first five to ten minutes and after that it’s all downhill. Alison Brie stars as Ferrell’s fiancée and she is absolutely, stunningly beautiful in her brief screen time. But even her scenes aren’t funny either; she’s simply pretty and that’s it. I can’t really say much else about this unfunny attempt at stealing people’s hard earned money. Steer clear; avoid at all costs. Get Hard is 100 minutes of repeated dick jokes and pointless raunchiness for the sake of shock value. I will say this however; if you like Ferrell comedies and you’re fine with him playing the same exact character that he always plays then maybe you’ll find something worthwhile here. If you’re okay with Kevin Hart playing the same character he always does then maybe… I just couldn’t take it. It’s just boring. Get Hard makes you soft. (Shameful dick joke, sorry.) I’m going to stop talking about this movie now.
Rated R For: pervasive crude and sexual content and language, some graphic nudity, and drug material
Run Time: 100 minutes
After Credits Scene: No, thankfully.
Starring: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Alison Brie, Craig T. Nelson
Directed By: Etan Cohen
Out of 5 Nerdskulls
Story: 1/ Acting: 2/ Directing: 2.5/ Visuals: 3
OVERALL: 1.5 Nerdskulls
Check out the trailer below:
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