It was inevitable that Kevin Hart would eventually garner enough notoriety to get a theatrical comedy special. If Eddie Griffin, Martin Lawrence, and Eddie Murphy can make a successful theatrical special, Hart should get his turn at the mic too. Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain is a ninety-minute comedy special that is only about sixty minutes comedy and thirty minutes flashbacks and skit.
What gave me so much pleasure while watching Eddie Murphy Raw and Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat? The standup routine. Both films featured two very honest, funny comedians doing what they do best; stand up. Kevin Hart doesn't seem to get that's what people want. The twenty minutes the drab, useless skit takes up could've been used for more of Hart's witty comedy.
Sadly, this isn't his best work. Kevin Hart: Seriously Funny was more amusing. It seemed he was more committed with that than Laugh at My Pain. It seemed he wanted to accomplish more in that special. In Laugh at My Pain he does a fair to decent job trying to keep the flow going. What ultimately happens is he repeats to many jokes that weren't funny the first time. Like his "pineapples" line that he says when he is having uncomfortable sex. The line was low-brow but still sort of worked the first time he said it. To repeat it many, many more times is like assuring the audience got the joke.
Hart tackles a small range of subjects, unlike Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy who seemed to broaden their horizons more. He usually stays in the are of sex and his childhood. This makes the film work on a more personal level. Still, it would've been nice to see Hart open up more and share his opinions. We get many stories about Hart's father, who he claims was a big drug addict during the early years of his life. Some of the stories seem fabricated, yet I can't say for sure.
What the film does right, like I said, is conduct things on a personal level. Whether Hart is fabricating events or actually saying them with purely real honesty, it works and it works well. He is such a funny comedian, full of intelligence and soul that he can make the strangest topics appealing. Even if they're in bad taste, case and point, his mother's funeral.
Laugh at My Pain is divided in three halves; the "humble beginnings" prologue that takes up a good fifteen minutes, the main course of Hart's standup routine which clocks in a little shy of an hour, and then a skit in the style of Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs.
The prologue is amusing, the standup is a treat, but the skit almost ruins the event with its awkward presence and rushed quality. It's so very hard for a comedian to make a quality skit, which is why many don't do it. I can see Hart was aiming for a Chappelle Show style comedy sketch, but it comes off as flat and unfunny. Its presence and delivery nearly kills any remote respect the film was trying to achieve. It doesn't slaughter it completely, but is very close.
Kevin Hart: Laugh at My Pain is a fun, rambunctious comedy special with a lot to offer in terms of the standup routine. Unfortunately, the closing is awkward and wastes a good twenty it doesn't make the special an unwatchable plod of monotony. The film packs in variety, just not the kind I wanted. This is, however, an interesting landmark in Hart's career. He went from an underground comedian to a mainstream sensation pretty much overnight. So in that regard the film has a purpose, unlike some concert films that beg an explanation. While I did laugh a lot at Hart's pain, I can't say I was in pain from my laughing.
Performed by: Kevin Hart. Directed by: Leslie Small and Tim Story.
