Starring: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris, Alison Brie
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 100 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2015
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It is not entirely unexpected to be greeted with elements of racism and other prejudices when attended MA15+ rated comedies in today’s cinemas. They are difficult to avoid, and admittedly can be very amusing when parodied or dealt with appropriately. In ‘Get Hard’ however, race and sexuality are battered mercilessly, to the extent that it becomes hard to enjoy. Not even two of America’s top comedians and their fizzy chemistry can save it from crossing the line.
James King (Will Ferrell) is one of America’s absurdly rich financial types – with a stunning fiancé (Alison Brie), enormous home and a fleet of Hispanic maids and gardeners, he has it all. Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) is one of America’s downtrodden – running his modest car washing business, he is struggling to get money together to move his family out of their rough neighbourhood. When King is convicted for embezzlement and fraud he says he didn’t commit, he is sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin maximum security prison. Given 30 days to get his affairs in order, he turns to Darnell to help him ‘get hard’ for prison life, mistakenly assuming that Darnell has done hard time himself. Keen to make some quick cash, Darnell agrees, and soon he has transformed King’s home into a replica San Quentin and sets out to teach him how to survive in prison.
King’s character is a true contradiction. He appears to be highly intelligent, making millions of dollars off single transactions, referencing Greek myth and Shakespeare, and spouting dialogue like ‘It was an ambrosia of natural instincts’. Yet his level of racism is stupefyingly extreme, such as assuming Darnell has been to prison due to the statistics of his race, and classifying people as ‘White or Miscellaneous’. Despite this, King still tries to apologise to Darnell when trying to join a white supremacist gang for protection on the inside. The character lacks consistency and is entirely unrelatable. This dichotomy is painfully awkward – though comedy characters aren’t expected to make perfect sense, when they’re this far removed from reality (and not openly surrealist) any offense that they cause jars with the humour, and works against the film. On a similar note, the entire film is based around preparing King to avoid being raped by fellow inmates behind bars. This premise opens up the door to plenty more offense, inviting homophobia into the mix (sitting curiously alongside the male leads’ shared homoeroticism).
Ferrell and Hart are committed to a fault. As arguably the most loved American comedians in film working today, their pairing was ripe for hilarity. They give it their best, and though they deliver big laughs on occasion (and Hart even manages to emote in a scene parodying ‘Boyz N the Hood’), the material isn’t up to it. First-time director Etan Cohen and editor Michael L. Sale appear to struggle finding the best story from what one can only assume was dozens of hours’ worth of improvisational material.
The creative talent involved should have cooked up something better and more wholesome than this fleeting effort. It’s surprising to think of a major studio financing a film with so great a propensity for offence – maybe in future they should be a little harder on themselves, and they can avoid making another ‘Get Hard’ down the track.
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