TORONTO — In the new comedy Get Hard (opening Friday), Will Ferrell plays a businessman facing 10 years in prison for insider trading who hires his car washer, played by Kevin Hart, to teach him how to survive behind bars.
Ferrell’s James King assumes Hart’s Darnell has been in prison because he’s black — and Darnell doesn’t want King to think otherwise because he needs the cash.
Get Hard is the directorial debut of Etan Cohen, who’s written movies like Men in Black 3 and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
Will Get Hard cause a rush of Ferrell and Hart fans to cinemas or will it fall short at the box office? Here’s a look at some of the reviews.
“If you’re disturbed by white-collar crime, but not quite as disturbed as you are by gay sex, then congratulations: You might possess just the right combo of social conscience and unexamined homophobia needed to fully enjoy Get Hard,” wrote Justin Chang in Variety.
He opined the movie’s premise “allows for a few timely jabs at racial oppression and class disparity, though it’s ultimately undone by some of the ugliest gay-panic humour to befoul a studio release in recent memory.”
READ MORE: Ferrell, Hart defend Get Hard
Chang said the chemistry between Ferrell and Hart “cries out for a smarter, less objectionable vehicle.”
He added: “Whatever one makes of Get Hard’s contribution to our ongoing national debate about race, class and sexuality, there’s no denying that too much of it simply feels cheap, flailing and tired.”
At the Miami New Times, Amy Nicholson said Get Hard boils down to being about King’s fear of rape.
“The script takes circuitous detours trying to find a way to make rape funny,” she wrote.
“Get Hard is most comfortable — and funny — when Cohen gets back to skewering class warfare. After Darnell turns King’s mansion into a mock prison, the maids and gardeners play-act at treating their master like an inmate. They don’t say much, but their smiles speak volumes. Chaplin’s Little Tramp would be proud. And then he’d roll his eyes as if to say, ‘It’s been 85 years since the Great Depression and you guys are still working this out?'”
Alex Needham of The Guardian said the movie’s politics become dubious “when it comes apparent, as per the title, that what King really fears is being raped in prison.”
Needham singles out a scene in which King tries to perform oral sex on a man.
“Written down, this sounds horrendous; watching it, I have to admit that I laughed – Farrell is a gifted comic performer – and I’m gay,” he wrote. “But I suspect that in years to come, media studies students will watch this film and be astonished that such a negative portrayal of homosexuality persisted in the mainstream in 2015.”
Needham said the movie isn’t any more sensitive to race.
“I don’t believe Get Hard sets out to be hurtful, and there are some good gags, but it does seem dumb and dated.”
In Vanity Fair, Eric D. Snider seemed to agree.
“I don’t mean to suggest that a comedy about a scared rich dude heading for state prison shouldn’t address the subject of prison rape, or even joke about it,” he wrote. “Honestly, it would be more conspicuous not to mention it.
“But there are funnier ways to do it than by merely repeating ‘You’re going to get raped’ over and over, which is essentially what Get Hard does for about 15 minutes of its runtime.”
Snider said the movie’s focus on prison rape overshadows “a handful of solid laughs and a couple of great scenes.”
He wrote: “The story touches on racial discrimination, income inequality, and other heady subjects, often to amusing effect. It’s not mean-spirited, and it’s panicky straight guys, not gays, who are the target. It’s just disappointing, that’s all.”
John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter summed up Get Hard as a buddy comedy that “guarantees plenty of jokes about the many things men do, consensually and otherwise, in the slammer with their private parts.”
He wrote: “Aiming low in a way that will scare off some of Ferrell’s fair-weather fans, the pic is unimaginative but does a good enough job to please the rest of them (Fans of Hart should enjoy it more).”
DeFore said Get Hard seems more dated than 1983’s Trading Places, “not to mention less savvy about all the subjects it pretends to be addressing while it tries to make us laugh.”
Chelsea Harfoush of The Horn figured Cohen was interested in making a comedy about the divide between classes “in between all the rape jokes.”
“And when you’re working with such great talent like Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart,” she added, “it’s hard not to see this as a waste.”
Harfoush said the movie’s big joke is simply that King doesn’t want to be raped.
“I’m not saying it was out of character for this to be a concern, or even that all of the jokes weren’t funny, because some were,” she wrote. “I’m saying … it’s a waste of a good idea and a great cast. Too bad.”
At Film School Rejects, Neil Miller agreed. “Ferrell and Hart are fun together,” he wrote. “They get some laughs because individually they are very funny and together they have solid chemistry. But it’s hard not to wish that they were teaming up in a smarter movie.”
Miller was also critical of the movie’s subject matter.
“The film is thoroughly lobotomized in a wash of racial stereotypes and homophobic prison rape paranoia. Get Hard discards any social themes and strings together a 100-minute homophobic paranoia joke.”
Edward Douglas of Coming Soon was not a fan.
“When you base the very premise of your comedy on very real racism that exists in this country, the only place you can go is down… and that’s exactly where Get Hard goes,” he wrote.
“Get Hard goes way overboard in trying to drive the point home that King will most likely get raped as soon as he gets into prison. And that’s pretty much the single running joke that drives the entire plot.”
Douglas said both Ferrell and Hart have the chops to do better.
“We get a constant stream of jokes about rape and sexual harassment in jail, which isn’t even remotely funny. But then that sums up Get Hard in a nutshell: ‘Not funny.'”
Douglas tried to find a silver lining.
“At least we finally get a comedy that homophobes, racists and generally stupid people can all enjoy together!”
Comments