Westside Steve Posted April 14, 2015 Report Share Posted April 14, 2015 Get Hard Warner Brothers R. 100 min To be honest I'm not a big fan of Will Ferrell. I know a lot of people just love the guy and his movies always kick ass at the box office. He seems like a nice enough fellow for what it's worth so I suppose it's just his favorite genre of film, that absurd parody as you find in TALLADEGA NIGHTS or ANCHORMAN or that stupid ice skating movie. Still the pickings are pretty slim this time of year so I went with the weeks big sellers. Honestly GET HARD did start out with two things in the plus column. First of all it's just your standard redemption vulgar action comedy and not the aforementioned lame satire. Second, it was not FURIOUS part 700 or whatever which is always good. The title itself sets the tone for the caliber of comedy you are about to witness. Getting hard, of course, refers to getting in shape, (even though there are a left of boner jokes) toughening up and being ready to defend oneself in a dangerous situation. It's a little like the training sequences in ROCKY 3 but lots more dirty and stupid. The person getting hard is nerdish investment banker James King (Ferrell) who has been convicted of securities fraud, or some such financial infraction, and who has been sentenced to a maximum security prison by a judge who wants to make an example. King is in panic mode since he has 30 days before you'll be dragged off to the Big House. He approaches mild mannered Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) who he believes has spent time in prison and hires him to be kind of a prison personal trainer. In actuality Lewis has never run afoul of the law and merely made up the story to seem tough. Then it's a series of crass situations in which the naive King attempts to take on the persona of a thug. Some of the gags are kind of funny and some aren't but at the end of the day it works out to a slight net plus. One of the brighter spots of GET HARD is co-star Kevin Hart who is talented, energetic and charismatic. He steals more than one scene from the star and I give Ferrell, one of the producers, a nod of respect for allowing the costar to shine. This isn't a great movie by any stretch of the imagination and the situations are pretty much what you would guess from the title but it was better than I expected so... B- WSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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