Get Hard

Will Ferrell’s steep descent into total irrelevance continues with Get Hard, as the movie, which at least doesn’t feel completely improvised, suffers from a seriously (and increasingly) repetitive storyline and a dearth of laugh-out-loud funny jokes and gags. The narrative casts Ferrell as James King, a powerful stock broker who is arrested for fraud and quickly sentenced to 10 years behind bars. Fearing for his safety, James hires the man who washes his car (Kevin Hart’s Darnell) to show him how to survive in the notoriously tough San Quentin prison – although, unbeknownst to James, Darnell has never been in trouble with law in his life. It’s a fairly one-note premise that’s run into the ground to progressively pronounced effect by first-time filmmaker Etan Cohen, as Get Hard, for the most part, aims for the lowest-common-denominator it terms of its comedic elements – with the screenplay, by Jay Martel, Ian Roberts, and Cohen, emphasizing a series of unfunny set-pieces generally revolving around Ferrell’s character’s extreme “whiteness” (eg James brawls with a group of armed gang members). There’s little doubt, too, that Ferrell’s typically lazy performance goes a long way towards exacerbating the less-than-engrossing atmosphere, and it’s ultimately rather surprising to note that Hart, generally the worst aspect of a film, delivers a down-to-earth turn that stands as one of Get Hard‘s few positive elements – although, needless to say, his affable work is hardly enough to lift the proceedings out of its relentless doldrums.

** out of ****