Get Hard Live Free Or Get Hard

Filled with prison rape jokes, stupid faces, and erection euphemisms, Get Hard is pretty much what you’d expect it is if you’ve seen the trailer or can picture Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart talking about how one needs to, well, get the other “hard.” In this case, “hard” is standing in for the word “tough,” because euphemisms are funny, I guess. Ferrell’s character is James King, an investment banker who has everything in life. A great job, more money than he knows what to do with, a wonderful fiancé (Alison Brie; yes, Lord Business and Unikitty are engaged to be married, and no, this isn’t a filthy fanfiction), and a great boss (Craig T. Nelson). But his world’s about to come crashing down when he gets arrested, charged, and sentenced to ten years in prison for fraud and embezzlement. He’s given 30 days to get his affairs in order, and during that time enlists the help of the man who washes his car, Darnell (Hart), to train him for prison. Darnell, he assumes, is someone who went to prison. Why? Because, he tells us, one out of every three black people goes to prison at some point. That tells you more or less what type of person we’re dealing with. As such, it’s initially kind of hard to root for James. He pleads his innocence – and the film makes no bones about who the real villain is – but James starts out such an unlikable person and really never redeems himself for that. Darnell, meanwhile, just wants to make enough money to get his family into a nice neighborhood. If the film has a “good” character, it’s him. It’s too bad James didn’t pick up some of those nicer attributes. The only growth that James undertakes involves, as the title indicates, getting “hard.” Math was never my strong suit, but 66 + 15 looks like 81 to me. That leaves 19 minutes unaccounted for. Take out the credits, and we have maybe 13 minutes left. For what purpose does Get Hard use them? An abbreviated and frankly quite terrible action-buddy sequence in which James and Darnell try to bring down the real bad guy. It has the only real action scene of the movie, and is supposed to serve as this big climax but doesn’t really amount to a whole lot. The action isn’t good and the payoff is lame. Get Hard functions as the directorial debut of one Etan Cohen, who has worked on satirical movies like Idiocracy and Tropic Thunder. Get Hard never approaches those heights, although not all of it is a failure. There are some laughs reaped from race relations and cultural appropriation, which could have easily been unfunny and very offensive. In fact, when the film decides to get away from “lolprisonrape” and starts to joke about other things, it actually starts to get decent. It’s just too bad that it can’t go more than a minute or two before going back down that road. Bottom Line: Consisting of nothing more than barely related sketches, prison rape jokes, erection euphemisms, and a poor action-buddy sequence, Get Hard doesn’t use its premise or stars as well as it should. Recommendation: Outside of being a massive Will Ferrell or Kevin Hart fan, there’s no reason to see Get Hard. [rating=2]