Isaac Feldberg: Get Hard
It’s hard to think of a more abhorrent comedy in recent years than this noxious, ugly, outdated piece of trash, which follows a racist businessman (Will Ferrell) who recruits the only black guy (Kevin Hart) he knows to give him ‘prison lessons’ so that he can avoid being raped while on the inside serving time for embezzlement.
It’s also hard to know where to start criticizing it, because absolutely everything in Get Hard is shockingly awful, from the gay-panic humor to the bland and lazy direction (by Etan Cohen, who thankfully hasn’t found another helming gig since).
Ferrell and Hart never conjure any sort of chemistry on screen, simply inhabiting poorly staged scenes and sleepwalking through lines so unfunny that the film almost works better as a self-satire. They’re victims here, trapped by a thoroughly horrible film, but they’re also guilty of not looking at the script they were given. Had they done so, they would have realized the entire flick is built on a nauseating foundation of racism and homophobia, poisoning the movie from first frame to last.
In 2015, it’s downright shocking that a movie as despicable as Get Hard got made. It lands with a splat in a country more attuned to the horrors of racial inequality and sexual discrimination than ever, like that hateful old relative who sits in the corner at family gatherings, the only one still laughing at the denigration of others.
