Get Hard
Get Lost.
This review is also up at Channel 24
This review is also up at Channel 24
What it's about
James King is a
millionaire businessman who finds himself sentenced to ten years of
hard time in San Quentin State Prison for various counts of fraud. In
order to prepare himself for the ordeal (read: potential rape) of
living life in maximum security prison, he approaches Darnell Lewis,
the owner of the car-washing business he frequents, with a lucrative
offer of $10 000 cash to teach him how to survive his next ten years.
The catch though, is that despite James' racist assumptions about
him, Darnell is actually a hard working family man and not the
hardened criminal that James thinks him to be. Still, Darnell could
really, really use that money...
What we thought
I'm getting kind
of sick of saying this about damn near every comedy that comes out
these days but, seriously, where the hell are the laughs? Yes, Get
Hard has been the subject of a lot of controversy for its
questionable racial and sexual politics but forget all that – the
real problem with Get Hard is that it is absolutely, resolutely
lacking in any halfway decent gags. I think I sniggered maybe twice
in the film's 100-minute run time and, honestly, I think that was
mostly just out of a sense of duty to a bunch of performers – as
well as a director and a trio of writers – who really should be a
whole lot funnier than this.
We have the
director of the hilariously goofy Tropic Thunder and writers whose
work includes solid comedies like the original Anchorman and the
generally well respected Key and Peele – not to mention, in the
case of one of them at least, a recurring acting role in the sublime
Arrested Development as one of that series' most memorable minor
characters: the Literal Doctor – so you would excuse me for
expecting at least some humour, some mirth even, in a collaboration
between this kind of comedic talent. And yet, what we get instead is
a flat script, with presumably (badly) improvised “jokes”,
directed by a guy who suddenly has all the comedic timing of an Adam
Sandler movie.
Not enough
disappointment for you? How about the talent on screen? I know that
Kevin Hart is usually pretty bad in usually pretty terrible movies
but if you've ever seen an interview with the guy, he's clearly
genuinely funny and really quite likeable – it's just that, once
again, he absolutely fails to deliver it in an actual movie role. And
then, of course, there's Will Ferrell, a guy who has been very, very
funny in the past – albeit not for a while - but who seems weirdly,
completely lost here.
Worst of all, the
film takes the usually extremely funny Alison Brie (Community, the
Five Year Engagement) and turns her into little more than a vacuous
sex object. Now, don't get me wrong, as a red-blooded straight male,
I can definitely attest to her being very, very convincing in that
role but when you consider just how much more she's capable of, it's
hard not to join in with the bra-burning puritans and call “sexist”
on the way she is used here. Yes, she looks really rather incredible
in her underwear but, as the nominal female lead, how about giving
her, I don't know, a character and maybe, just maybe, something to
actually do?
Mind you, Ms. Brie
is not exactly free of blame either. She's spent the last six years
working with Dan Harmon so she clearly knows what good comedy (and
difficult genius) is. So why, oh why, did she sign on to something
this... (to steal an obvious joke) flaccid? I know Community
struggles in the ratings game but is she really so strapped for money
that she would agree to being in something this rubbish?
Now, as for the
film's apparently “offensive” material, in the film's defense, I
think it was actually trying to subvert racial and sexual stereotypes
but because it's so embarrassingly flat-footed in terms of its
comedy, it mostly just comes across as racist and homophobic.
Remember Michael Richards' infamous N-word outburst at one of his
comedy shows where he tried to shut up a couple of hecklers by
launching into a very unfunny and just unspeakably misjudged racial
routine that effectively made him the most hated person in Hollywood
since Mel Gibson? Well, Get Hard is something like that – only too
bland to even be that notable.
Ah well, at least
we got Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 to set that sagging comedy bar even
lower. Yay?
Comments
Post a Comment