Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain

Kevin Hart's Let Me Explain is an interesting conundrum.

On one hand you have another great hour of comedy from one of the better stand-up comics in the business today.

But on the other hand we have a muddled production with choppy editing, sloppy directing, and poor sound mixing that prevents this comedic movie from aging with the greats like Raw, Live on the Sunset Strip, and Himself.

What also hurts Let Me Explain is the short running time, the extremely egotistical preshow, and the failed skit in the beginning of the entire thing. If Hart can simply manage to stretch his material a little longer and delete all the extra fluff then he would be a little closer of reaching the comedic Rushmore of Pryor, 80s Murphy, Rock, and my main man George Carlin. He still has a ways to go though.

If you are a Kevin Hart fan, then you will not be disappointed. He once again spits out quick funny anecdotes, throws in a couple great catchphrases, and is never afraid of making fun of himself. He once again dedicates plenty of time to talking about women and relationship clichés; and these moments provide the biggest laughs because he takes the moments we can all relate to and stretch them into exaggeratory measures to successful jokes. He also has this likability factor that allows for him to control the crowd and never lose them, not for a single second.

And then we have all the technical issues. First off for a Madison Square Garden the audience was quite quiet. Was it the jokes not hitting? No, it's that the sound editing focused pretty much 95% on Hart, leaving the movie sounding quieter than it should. Part of a good comedic concert is listening to the audience react to the stories and collectively understand the verbal motions of one individual. Remember the epic battles Richard Pryor had against his audience on Sunset Strip? With this production staff we never would have truly enjoyed it.

As a matter of fact, it was tough to enjoy anything in the first fifteen minutes. The opening skit was uneven, just like the last one in Laugh at my Pain. And then it was followed by a sequence that should have been kept for the closing credits. The movie needed 20 minutes to truly get going. Jerry Seinfeld once said that usually comedians have only one minute to catch the audience otherwise he/she fails. The only reason why Kevin Hart was allowed 20 is because his material over the years has been consistently funny, and we all secretly knew that no matter how lame the material with his buddies are, it would all be forgiven once he steps up on the mic...even if the first act drags miserably.

But Kevin seriously, drop your friends. They may have supported you, but that doesn't mean squat if it hinders your movies.

Bad language, disrespectful use of tasteless descriptive words is what this mans entire act is based upon...but not a single funny joke or funny story/tale etc!

Kevin Hart to me, when I first saw him, had what I think is a comedians face and it made me laugh. After I saw him in his films I realized the full truth in the term, "Looks can be deceiving", as I learnt that he is not at all what I would class as a comedian. I later watched all his stand up comic releases to make sure if I had gotten it right...I had. He was still terrible!

He is in the same foul mouthed, disrespectful and offensive category as the disgusting Eddie Murphy; IMHO. Using the 'F' word continuously and spouting the words bitches and ni**er constantly is just not tasteful or adding anything to humour or comedy! His looking at life style of delivery is dull and dreary content and, he is obviously not seeing life as the rest of us. I have found Americans to have no real sense of what comedy is and they just laugh at anything; especially foul mouthed comedy acts who never actually tell a joke or a funny story.

The only American comedian I find to be hilarious - without any foul language or descriptive names rudeness - is Gabriel Iglesias. He is one of the worlds best, IMHO!

I felt ripped off when comedian Kevin Hart said "thank you and good night" and abruptly ended his routine. I should have waited for this to show up on cable or the bootleg (just kidding about the bootleg). I paid money for a 75-minute stand-up comedy movie whose first 25 minutes feature no stand-up comedy whatsoever. Minus credits, that's ~45 minutes of jokes, several of which are only mildly funny, not his normally funny. The film opens with an unfunny party scene Hart shows clip after clip of his tours from around the world. Not ONE of these clips features Hart telling a single joke. Instead, it's him saying "thank you (fill in the location)" and just more clips of fans and Hart's entourage sleeping on a bus. It goes on so long that I almost walked out. I didn't need a Kevin Hart commercial to prove he was a big funny star. I knew this that's why I bought tickets to see his stand-up. I think Kevin Hart is hilarious; this just wasn't his best material. Hart used the N-word way too much for my taste, but that's the price you pay for a lot of black comedy. I guess they feel that appeals to their mostly urban crowd / audience.

8/10

Unlike my other favorite comedian, Louis C.K., Kevin Hart is somewhat of a formulaic comedian. While that is absolutely not a bad thing at all, it is to be noted that a bulk of his material comes from 3 main topics, all of which he expands on so amazingly well:

1. He will dissect common relationship problems that most everyone can relate to

2. He will state a certain trait of his character and tell a story as to why he became that way

3. He will state a somewhat uncommon fear of his and tell a story about the origin of that fear

After watching all of his previous stand ups, it did begin to get somewhat predictable because of it's overly unbelievable nature. This is not to say that I wasn't laughing like crazy throughout all of them.

When I heard about this special being theatrically released I knew I was going to see on opening night. Not much is to be said about anything other than the fact that the whole theater was roaring with laughter for 90% of the time.

Now back to the formula; Kevin did adhere to it here and there, but I think the reason everyone enjoyed this so much was because he threw in a mix of tiny little 2-3 minute segments that had really nothing to do with anything and it just worked. He veered off a bit from talking about himself or about relationships and he just started talking about people in general and the way we are with one another.

In general, I think this was his best one yet. I think his formula is one of the more advanced and genuinely true ways to intrigue people. Even though it is a comedy special, and you don't quite know exactly how much of it is true or false, Kevin Hart has a great way of connecting through to the audience on a more personal level through the way he talks about himself and his relationships.

He is comedic genius and will one day be legendary.

8/10

First let me correct one reviewer here that said half of the movie was spent showing clips of his shows around the world. Not True. I intentionally timed it because I read his review before I saw the movie. It was 7 minutes of a skit that made me laugh. Then it was approximately 6 minutes of showing clips of Kevin's shows from around the world. The rest of the movie was stand up comedy. Although I laughed really hard only on certain parts, the whole movie was entertaining to me and that was my goal: to be entertained. Kevin's brand of comedy can be silly at times, and there is nothing wrong with that, if it makes you laugh, and it did. I can't understand why half the viewers here (Since July 6, 2013) had unfavorable things to say about the movie. As I observed, the audience and the fans around the world are happy with what Mr. Hart does in his act.