I seldom get around to watching new movies while they are still new. But atleast I got to this movie before a new calendar year started. And why is that important? Because I laughed until I wheezed, gasped and cried after a really, really long time. And that, in my book, is priceless!
So the movie is hilarious you ask? Not really. Not by a long stretch but it has its moment.
Here’s what it’s all about. Will Ferrell is a typical Bel-Air WASP, money-man with a ton of superficialities. He’s a stock broker with the magic touch and stereotypical rich white guy’s life aka the Benz and Beemer and a host of Hispanic staff pruning his lawns and cleaning his house. He works in a white firm, has a white girlfriend and all white associates.
And when trouble hits him hard, he falls back on his ignorant stereotypical mindset: that most blacks have gone to jail and are therefore are hardasses who can teach him to be a little less…wussy. So pleads with the one black person he sees on a regular basis, Kevin Hart, and asks him to get him HARD! The rest of the movie is all about Hart teaching Ferrell the ground realities about prison life and how Ferrell jumps through hoops to be a tougher man and not have to resort to be some giant’s bitch in prison.
It’s a buddy movie with Hart’s impersonations of the ethnic groups in a jail yard and Ferrell’s trash talking soliloquy being the standout points in an otherwise cliched movie. It’s not entirely Trading Places but it has some similarities.
All in all, it’s a one time watch only for the flashes of what make Hart and Ferrell the kind of comic performers they are. The rest of the movie is all about predictable comic sequences that will still get some smiles out of you. In the end, the two become pals and overcome their class, social hangups because they GOT HARD!
Rating- 1 1/2 *
Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me. 