Review: 'Get Hard' deserves maximum sentence

Movie hits theaters March 27

DETROIT – The new movie "Get Hard," which stars Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, serves up as many laughs as clichés, and as many raunchy scenes as it does predictable story lines.

Hart stars in a role that you might have seen in his last movie, "The Wedding Ringer," in which he's the black guy who has to teach a nerdy white guy life lessons.

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Ferrell plays a stereotypical corporate executive living in the 1 percent. He has a beautiful fiancé, played by Alison Brie, and a giant house in Bel-Air. James (Ferrell) gets into a bit of trouble, and is sent to a max-security prison for 10 years. That's when he enlists Darnell (Hart) to help prep him for prison, even though Darnell has never been to prison.

In a perfect world, "Get Hard" would have been a great satirical look at the racial, income and criminal divide. But instead, it is weighed down by unoriginal raucousness, and middle-school jokes about prison rape.

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There's no mistaking a movie that stars Will Ferrell. I mean, after all he does play relatively the same character in just about every movie. Don't get me wrong, I think he's hilarious. There are parts in this movie that had me close to tears.

Get Hard is definitely not a family movie. The comedy comes with a cost. It's very offensive, but nobody should be surprised by that. After all, the movie is about a rich white man going to prison who seeks out a black man (one he assumes spent time in prison because he's black) to help prepare him for time behind bars.

Kevin Hart plays a great supporting character to Ferrell's shenanigans. The two combine for a really raunchy comedy. They cross the lines when it comes to racial jokes, but in some strange way they have you smiling while doing it.

If you're looking for a movie that will make you think – this one is not for you. It's incredibly predictable and there's hardly any depth to the plot, but that's not why you go see a movie starring Ferrell and Hart, do you? Exactly! If you're a fan of either of them, you'll enjoy the movie. You'll be quoting this one just like you do Anchorman, Step Brothers and Old School.


About the Authors:

Ken Haddad has proudly been with WDIV/ClickOnDetroit since 2013. He also authors the Morning Report Newsletter and various other newsletters, and helps lead the WDIV Insider team. He's a big sports fan and is constantly sipping Lions Kool-Aid.