Get Hard

"Go back to where you belong!"

"I don't know where I belong!"

James King (Ferrell) is a successful and wealthy hedge fund manager.  He lives in a mansion and is engaged to the beautiful Alissa Clark (Brie).  Alissa's father, Martin (Nelson), is James' boss and just made James a partner in the firm.  While everything in James' life is going well, Darnell Lewis (Hart), who runs the car wash business in the parking garage, is struggling to find the funds to move his family.  He and his wife Rita (Findley) want to move to a better neighborhood so their daughter Makayla (Neal) can attend a better school.  At a James and Alissa's engagement party, the FBI arrested for fraud and embezzlement, and James is sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin.

He is given 30 days to get affairs in order before going to jail.  He is terrified of prison and hires Darnell help him "get hard" for prison.  Darnell knows nothing about life in jail, but agrees to help.


There is a skeleton of a biting comedy in the vein of Stir Crazy... but it doesn't come even close.

This is Etan Cohen's directorial debut.  He is a screenwriter, who co-wrote Tropic Thunder, and co-wrote this film as well.  The plot is all over the place, focusing mostly on profanity and the threat of rape, which just feels sloppy.  Odd-couple comedies and comedies about prison are nothing new.  And the overall premise of the film is similar to Rob Schneider's Big Stan.

Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart have excellent chemistry.  Ferrell is playing the usual shtick, a clueless but wealth/successful man, but he does it well.  Hart is ball of energy and excels at rates/yelling, which he gets to do frequently in this film.  The funniest scene is Hart acting out 3 different characters in a mock jail fight, bouncing off Ferrell to change characters.  They are the only characters that are really fleshed out.  The female characters are caricatures: Alison Brie is the shrew, Dominique Perry is the hot girl.  Edwina Findley and Ariana Neal somehow manage to escape that, and feel like actual people.

There are some funny moments and Ferrell and Hart are great together, but overall this film was just disappointing.

Get Hard (2015) 100 minutes
Rating: R for pervasive crude and sexual content and language, some graphic nudity, and drug material
Director: Etan Cohen
Starring: Will Ferrell as James King
Kevin Hart as Darnell Lewis
Craig T. Nelson as Martin Clark
Alison Brie as Alissa Clark
Edwina Findley as Rita Lewis
Ariana Neal as Makayla Lewis
Erick Chavarria as Cecelio
Tip "T.I." Harris as Russell
Paul Ben-Victor as Gayle