Get Hard

Get Hard [2015]: James King (Will Ferrell) is a wealthy hedge fund manager gets convicted of a white collar crime and receives 10 year prison sentence. James unable to come to terms with this life-crushing news, he turns to Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart), his strapped for cash car wash attendant and Darnell promises to get James King ready for prison. This is the big picture directorial debut for a writer turned director Etan Cohen (famous for writing the screenplays for Tropic Thunder, Idiocracy).

Another buddy comedy. Expectations were set at a reasonably low standard, as Hart being one part of the duo reminded me of this years comedic flop, The Wedding Ringer. Thankfully,  I experienced genuine laughs at scenes dependent on Hart playing it straight to Ferrell’s culturally daft character. Hart escapes his usual character molding of the fast, slick, know-it-all comic relief for once, and opts to veer off to Ferrell’s relatively serious counterpart. Alison Brie plays Alissa, James money-hungry fiancé/daddy’s little rich girl.

Expect the low-brow. If anything is guaranteed, it’s that prison rape is made fun of, a lot. Prison rape jokes and violence is at the heart and ‘soul’ of this movie. If anything, the title could read: “Prison Rape Joke”.  As we all know, comedy is relative. Political correctness is not the main objective here. Familiar hip-hop face, T.I. stars as Darnell’s gang-banger cousin and John Mayer makes a few appearances for some unidentified reason.

Have a light serving of zeitgeist. The white collar vs. blue collar workers. The movie knows its audience, and will not to offend it with jabs. The rich are seen as conspicuously spending big bucks, out of touch, shallow and greedy.The majority of characters play caricature versions of their given stereotypes but it is conducive to the gist of the film, so it gets a pass.