Will Ferrell plays a privileged, offensively ignorant white fool in Get Hard, a film drawing accusations of racism and homophobia.
The Anchorman star plays a filthy rich businessman convicted of fraud and looking down the barrel of a long stretch in San Quentin.
Being a simple buffoon with zero street sense, that is pretty much a death sentence. So he buddies up with an employee he assumes is a criminal, because he's black, in order to 'get hard' before prison.
Ferrell's character is intentionally unlikeable and the racial humour is meant to have him as the butt of the jokes - something akin to David Brent or Kenny Powers. But it's handled clumsily here and a mean-spiritedness often makes it hard to laugh.
Kevin Hart is an actor I keep hearing great things about but haven't seen much of yet. It's a shame my first big-screen experience with him is such a lacklustre one, but I can see the appeal and hope to see more of him.
Get Hard would work better if Hart's character was the lead and Ferrell's the sidekick. That'd tone down the cringe factor out of a lot of the racial humour, at least.
The jokes to do with gay sex and prison rape are surprisingly schoolboy-ish and immature. They'd be more suited to an '80s comedy than a 2015 one.
Female characters? Nope, none to speak of. Alison Brie's comedic chops, put to great use in Community, are here completely sidelined so she can play nothing more than eye candy.
Some readers may think, well, this is just a silly comedy geared at a male audience, so what does it matter if it offends some people and doesn't have female characters?
Well the film's biggest problem isn't its offensiveness, but rather its lack of funniness. It's extremely average, with jokes that miss just as often as they hit. There's a few laughs to be had, for sure, but not nearly enough.
The story is predictable and stupid, the characters ham-fisted caricatures, so there's really nothing going for the film except the jokes and they're simply not good enough.
Two stars.
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Get Hard
:: Director: Etan Cohen
:: Starring: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Alison Brie, Dan Bakkedahl, T.I., Christopher Berry
:: Rating: R16 - Violence, offensive language, sexual material & other content that may offend
:: Running Time: 101 minutes
:: Release Date: February 26, 2015
source: newshub archive
