Get Hard

Get Hard was a film I really wasn't expecting to like much, but it was significantly funnier than I expected it to be. Will Ferrell's films have had a tendency to be a bit like Russian Roulette as of late, but this one is fortunately one with no bullet in the chamber. Ferrell plays James, a market trader with (in some people's books) an idyllic life: beautiful house, beautiful fiancée (the boss's daughter) and more money that Trump could shake a stick at.

But the idyll is shattered when he is arrested and then convicted of corruption on a massive scale. Wanting to set a public example , the judge sentences him to the delights of San Quentin and James has 30 days to "Get Hard" before being thrown to the mercy of the inmates. Helping him in the task is Kevin Hart ("Ride Along") who, primarily for reasons of personal financial gain, pretends to be much more 'street' than he really is.

What I enjoyed about this film was the leisurely set up of character and plot before the real comedy (the 'training') kicked in. This is where Ferrell and Hart really work together well, and I thought Hart was excellent in his role. Also good to see Craig T. Nelson ("Poltergeist", "Blades of Glory") back on the big screen as James's boss.

There are few films where I have guffawed out loud so much at certain points: some really good visual slapstick humour. However, the film will be far from everyone's tastes, with some very close to the knuckle jokes. In particular things come to a 'head', as it were, with some mano-a-mano action between Ferrell and Matt Walsh ("VEEP", "Into the Storm"), where the crudometer gets cranked up to "Farrelly". The film is also let down by a weak ending and if there was a joke to be had in the last line of the film, it completely flew over my head.

Recommended for some good belly laughs for the broad minded.

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It has it's moments, but all in all it could have been more, this duo works out quite well, but we never see the real power of them, they never really shine. There are scenes and lines here and there that work very well, but in the end it just gets a bit too superficial and delivers fast easy jokes that doesn't hit the mark for these two.

All is well that ends well and that it does, but we kind of figured that all from the beginning, in many ways this is way too obvious and does deliver what I expected, I know I sound very harsh and not very thrilled about this one and I am very disappointed :)

I did like the two main characters, both pretending to be someone they are not, and really working hard at getting everything to work out, while just being awkward and out of place.

I don't get why people like Will Ferrell. I've seen several of his movies over the last year, and I've laughed maybe just over a half dozen times at the dozen or so films I've seen him in.

And this film, other than the fact that it's about prisoners or criminals, has the worst jokes ever. I can't imagine anyone being in the theatre and seriously laughing at this junk.

Admittedly, I chuckled, and I do emphasize chuckle because I didn't laugh, a few times in this film. It wasn't entirely without humor, but the jokes were so base, the humor so low brow, the comic timing so poor, that one wonders what's happened to the aggregate IQ of the people of the United States of America.

A predictable script / story, some tasteless sexual situations, I wondered if the prisoner population, or people related and relating to prisoners, was such a big demographic that Will Ferrell and the powers that be thought this would be a good film to make.

Everyone I've talked to smirks and thinks Will Ferrell is Luke warm funny, me included. He's not entirely without humor. But he and his films are not the product of comic genius.

Hey look, if you've "done time", need to laugh at your incarceration, then maybe this film is for you, but otherwise give me the Three Stooges or Warner Brothers' cartoons any day over this garbage.

Avoid.

This is a great comedy with a lot of good racial humor, but it is for a narrow audience. If you like racial humor, Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart comedies, and bubble butts, you will love the movie. Although that is a lot of if's and many people will find it too distant from their own life experience to relate to the characters. The scenes are hardly predictable and will definitely surprise if not shock you. Some scenes may drag on for too long, but generally the movie flies by quickly. The acting is good, but for the fans of Will Farrell and Kevin Hart. Also make sure you are in a proper mood for watching an obscene comedy because the jokes will not spare you!

Get Hard is a comedy starring two of the funniest actors out there today, and having this duo of Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell you would think would make for an extremely funny movie, unfortunately it doesn't but it still had its fair share of good laughs. They had pretty good chemistry and most if not all of the good funny moments came from the interactions between the two of them. They played off the racial stereotypes for pretty much the entire film and as the film went on it got less funny and repetitive. The good moments of the film in terms of the comedy came in the middle of the film, thats where you have everyone introduced and the build up is over but you are also not yet exhausted by the repetitive jokes. In terms of their performances, there is nothing new here, it feels like they were both playing similar characters that they have played many times before in their previous films. But the characters did fit very well into the plot.

The plot of the film was a little predictable, but at the same time i wasn't bored of following the plot. It didn't feel like certain plot points happened in order to get a few quick jokes in, everything flowed pretty well and i was still interested in seeing what was going to happen next. There is not much else i can say about this film, there is nothing new to see here from Will or Kevin, but the film does provide with some good jokes and an interesting plot that can get you through the film fairly entertained. So i guess if you are a fan of either member of this comedy duo then you will enjoy seeing them together in this film. - 5/10