Get Hard

With GET HARD, I was bracing myself for sitting uncomfortably through a movie that was going to be racists and full of gay and dick jokes, constantly bombarding me and to a certain extent, racism is a big chunk or GET HARD's jokes, but it's mostly at the expense of rich people's ignorance toward minority and vice versa. And I never thought I'd ever say this about a Will Ferrell movie, but GET HARD is clever and I'll explain why. Will Ferrell plays millionaire James King who's nailed for fraud and he request the help of the man who washes his car, Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) to prepare him for life behind bars. That's essentially the plot for GET HARD. 

Quite simple and straightforward. The humor isn't always funny, the racist jokes aren't always spot on. It would've been one thing if they were, after all comedy almost always gets a pass for everything, so I wouldn't have been easily offended either, but what GET HARD lacks in its ability to get you to even chuckle, it makes up for in its clever concept. To me, GET HARD is a satire on the one percenter, in one of the scenes, Will Ferrell's James King tells Kevin Hart's Darnell Lewis that hardwork, not handouts, pay off. But then there's another scene in which Will Ferrell's James King teaches urban black folks how to play stocks correctly and create wealth for themselves (even though the business they're in is shady) and that to me goes to show the mindset that one percenter has, they quickly dismiss the rest of us as lazy, when in fact sometimes all we need is just an investment to get ourselves started, sometimes all we need is somebody to teach us how to create wealth as well. The skills that these few rich claim to have, can be taught, they can be shared, they can be distributed, there's nothing exclusive about them. I don't remember having seen a comedy that tackles that, so I find myself pleasantly surprised by GET HARD. 

If that doesn't get you impressed, then what can do the trick is GET HARD's many ways of re-creating prison scenarios. It may not crack you up but it's interesting to see how a Bell-Air mansion gets transformed into a prison cell, prison yard and much more and they utilize the maids, the gardeners, the servants, posing as prison inmates, it's very creative. Will Ferrell is in his usual self, butt naked, crying loudly and hysterically, I really can't get myself laughing at his being himself anymore, and Kevin Hart, the man who pretty much fills the void that Eddie Murphy left behind, is also in his usual self, banking on his being short, black, and a fast-talker, and so GET HARD pretty much presents all you already know about both Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, but the concept is a hidden gem.