5/10

Comedy titans Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart team up in an effort to “Get Hard”. If that opening sentence sounds wrong, don’t worry. The film exploits that joke and others repeatedly. James King (Ferrell) is an investment banker who is wrongfully accused of stealing millions of dollars from the firm he works at. He inquires about prison life from a car washer (Hart), who he racially accuses of being an ex convict. They’ve got 30 days to get James in the meanest shape of his life. From it’s juvenille humor about life in prison, to it’s overdone and racially insensitive stereotypes about cultures, “Get Hard” doesn’t even try to hide it’s passion for cheap laughs and unimaginative premise; it welcomes it. The movie isn’t a terrible one. It’s entirely watchable. It’s just not very funny, and that is kind of the main point of two such talents combining. Ferrell and Hart have a great chemistry, and i wouldn’t be against seeing them working together in a better script. The structure of the film really limits Hart in particular. Objectifying him to the role of the straight man to Ferrell’s loud screaming tantrums. Hart was responsible for the few laughs i had during the film, but i think he is someone who needs to have top bill. That Hart presence of taking over a film was missing in this role, and Ferrell’s dialogue just isn’t enough to push this film into a passing effort. The comedy doesn’t work for a couple of reasons. The first, it’s too predictable. The film’s racial insensitivity comes at the hands of every Mexican character doing yard work, every black character being a criminal thug, every white character being sneaky and….well white, and every gay character being a sex crazed maniac. I worry that Screenwriter Jay Martel has never actually spent time with any of these cultures. Maybe he just hasn’t really studied them, and just wrote down what he has heard through the stereotypical grapevine. It’s quite obvious that a film about prison is going to center around rape jokes, but this film plays it repeatedly to the point of an audience member yelling “WE GET IT”. If the jokes do make you laugh the first couple times, you will be pulling out sympathy giggles by the end of the film just to be respectable to the same lines you laughed at an hour ago. Another reason it doesn’t work? The lack of editing among quick hit jokes. Ferrell’s best gags in his films are always the kind the reveal the punchline, and then quickly cuts to the next scene. Director Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) seems to take his cues from the Seth Mcfarland school of editing. With a few quick edits, this film could’ve had enough to pull out that passable grade from me, despite being the most offensive film i have seen in quite sometime. It was great to see Craig T Nelson back on the big screen. It’s quite obvious that he is the antagonist of the film from the first second you see him, but that didn’t matter. He is responsible for some great villainous turns of the 80’s, and he took over every scene he was in. Surprisingly (And it hurts me to say this), my favorite part of the film was during the opening fifteen minutes when Ferrell joins a famous musician at a dinner party to play guitar. I’m not going to give away the reveal, but it actually worked for the loudest laughs out of my mouth for the entire film. Overall, the film was just OK to me. Nothing special. If you enjoy a raunchy comedy, and don’t care about originality as much, i would give it a shot. I think there are better race relation films like “Blazing Saddles”, or “Nothing To Lose”. I would recommend those before this one. If you are going to see it (And i know you will), rent it on DVD. There is nothing brag worthy enough about this film to ship out ten bucks to see it. “Get Hard” taps into some great comedic banter between it’s two leads, but it’s repetitive joke structure reflects a film that feels like a 95 minute rape joke.