Step 1: Get real. If you’re going off the premise, Get Hard is, well, a hard sell. A privileged white guy pays a black guy to help him prepare for prison life by learning to trash talk, avoiding getting stabbed and thwarting “drop-the-soap” scenarios? The idea sounds, at the very least, politically incorrect, and at the most, completely racist and homophobic. To be honest, Get Hard is a little of all that, but while it makes you wince, you’re still laughing because the film’s top-tiered comedic talents, Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, sell it. Hilariously hard (we’ll try to keep the “hard” puns to a minimum).
Step 2: Get acquainted. In a story that seems to be inspired by John Landis’ 1983 comedy Trading Places, Ferrell plays James King, a millionaire financial whiz who has a huge Bel Air home, a hot fiancée (the always delightful Alison Brie) and just became partner in his brokerage firm, run by his fiancée’s father (Craig T. Nelson). All is going well – until James suddenly finds himself facing a 10-year prison sentence for multiple fraud charges. After he scrunches his face in a series of crying jags at the prospect of life in prison, a seemingly innocent James pulls it together long enough to hire his car washer, Darnell (Hart), to help him “get hard” because James mistakenly believes Darnell has already done hard time in prison. It’s not true, of course. Darnell is a successful car-washing business owner with a lovely wife and young daughter. What he doesn’t have is a new home near a safer school, so Darnell accepts the job and pretends to be that thug James has already labeled him as. I mean, Darnell has seen enough prison movies to know how it works, right? He can turn James into a badass, right? We shall see…
Step 3: Get Hart. Kevin Hart is on one of those rolls actors dream about. He has made six films in two years, with many of them making some serious box office bank. But the one thing the comedian has an incredible knack for is connecting with his co-stars. Hart is already on a sequel pattern with Ride Along’s Ice Cube, and you just know he and his About Last Night co-star Regina Hall are going to make more films together. Hart even had chemistry with Josh Gad, which is one of the only redeeming factors to The Wedding Ringer. Now, it’s Ferrell’s turn, and these two nail it as a comedic duo. While delivering endless d**k jokes, taking stereotypes to the next level, and basically offending just about everyone, Ferrell and Hart still keep you laughing, in spite of yourself. All first-time director Etan Cohen (whose biggest writing credit is the equally hilarious and sometimes distasteful Tropic Thunder) needs to do is turn the cameras on and let the pros do what they do best. As Darnell “trains” James, both Ferrell and Hart are able to shine individually, while still bouncing funny-bone-tickling skills off one another. These moments are the best, but when the film tries to form some semblance of a plot and veers off into ridiculousness about two-thirds in, it falls apart.
Step 4: Get a sense of humor. It seems to be a trend, for hard-R comedies to see how many they can offend for the sake of comedy (take The Interview, for example), and perhaps these type of films should get away with it because it’s so obviously a parody. Let’s just say, Get Hard won’t make anyone’s top 5 comedies list, but if you are at all a fan of Ferrell or Hart, this should not disappoint.
Step 5: Get it hard. Oh, and the film does eventually take the title to the nth degree. You’re definitely waiting for it and then, there it is… Ferrell delivers a short riff on the whole “hard” thing while hugging Hart. It’s the right kind of coda for this one.