When all is said and done, when the pundit pieces are filed and filtered through the web-based soap box that is social media, the latest comedy from Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, Get Hard, will either be considered one of the great misunderstood comedies of all time, or a horrible piece of bigotry disguised as the latest rude, gross out laugher. Almost all the jokes are derived from stereotypes, and even the set up comes from the mean-spirited “misunderstanding” that a white boss (Ferrell) has regarding a black underling (Hart).
Now, there’s nothing legitimately wrong from ringing humor out of hate. Mel Brooks remains a champion at such dichotomies, his Blazing Saddles (1974)one of the great non-PC proclamations against racism ever created. Even as it obsessed over the N-word and other ethnic epithets, it never lost sight of its “bigots are idiots” byplay. In Get Hard (Get it? “Get Hard?” Cue Beavis and Butthead like snickering) the crudeness and rudeness are there, but it’s all in service of something unsavory, not a solid anti-prejudice message.
You see, our lead, James King (Ferrell) is one of those smug, self-involved wealthy businessmen who walks around his house naked, the better to show the hired help who’s boss. He’s preparing to marry the daughter of the company president (Craig T. Nelson) and everything seems cool until he is, somehow, convicted of fraud. Sentenced to ten years, James is desperate to learn some prison survival skills. Assuming that the African American man named Darnell (Hart) who washes the cars has experience behind bars, he “hires” him to prepare him for life in the slammer.
Darnell is actually a nice guy with no criminal past. He’s just a desperate dad trying to raise enough cash to move his family from their unsafe gangbanger neighborhood. So he takes the money and begins James’s education. At first, he tries to teach him self defense. When that doesn’t work, it’s time to instruct the WASP-ish wimp on the fine art of prison sex. Yes, sodomy (in all its forms and definitions) becomes a running “gag” as co-writer/director Etan Cohen (of Tropic Thunder (2008), not No Country for Old Men (2007) fame) milks as many man member jokes out of the aside as he can.
And you think Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015) was obsessed with men’s junk.
Things get worse when Darnell introduces James to his clichéd cousin (Tip “T.I.” Harris) and a third act twist which may prove our hero innocent. At this point, all ethnic truisms collide into each other, shaking out into a questionable commentary on reality vs. realism, taking a joke vs. making same. And then there’s the homophobia, rancid in its desire to make the proposed hard “R” demo roll in the aisles as James enters a gay hangout and tries to perform oral sex on a man. While it may seem subversive in a “go ahead and just drop the soap” kind of way, it hints at the horrors lying beneath the surface.
Get Hard really is every Red State Caucasian male’s nightmare, a world where he has to give up his freedom (to prison), his manliness (to another man), learn how to defend himself in the (assumed) minority world, and perhaps most importantly, give up his dreams of financial dominance and mingle with the “common” folk. When Eddie Murphy and Dan Akyroyd did this under the guise of a heredity vs. heritage in John Landis’ vastly superior Trading Places, we could see the context within the clichés. That movie wanted to make a point about those behaviors played out behind the scenes, manipulating the lives of their human experiments for their own one percent amusement. Here, all director Cohen can do is throw another penis on the barbie.
Indeed, when the history of comedy is written, the early part of the 21st Century will be remembered as the time when genitalia replaced jokes. For a while, it was the occasional full frontal shot. Now, we actually have a mainstream actor battling his own sense of self by allowing a prosthetic dong dangle in front of his mouth, like some kind of poisoned piñata. We are supposed to giggle as Ferrell fails to engage the dick, determined to maintain a dignity he abandoned before the opening credits roll. All we do is sit there, slack-jawed.
Granted, a great comedy could be made about an uptight businessman giving into his bi-curious leanings during a trip to the Big House. Of course, it would take something smarter than what Cohen and his co-scribes Jay Martel and Ian Roberts can contemplate. Their entire narrative plays at a summer camp level, pre-adolescents competing to see how many “wiener” jokes they can make before the counselors yell “Lights out!” Considering the both Martel and Roberts have written for the exceedingly intelligent sketch show Key and Peele, their treatment of African Americans is atrocious.
It’s so bad that even someone as genial as Hart can’t save it. The comedian is clearly at a crossroads, taking scripts below his talent to earn the paychecks necessary to, eventually, do the kind of films he wants. Get Hard is the equivalent of a Transformers franchise entry, where the possible reward is a more personal project down the line for its star. We balk at the ridiculousness, cringe at the crassness, and wonder how anyone outside the current Hellsapoppin’ clime of Hollywood would find this funny. Sure, you’ll laugh on occasion, but you’ll probably hate yourself for doing so.
Maybe, in a less enlightened time, Get Hard would seem like a scathing satire. Perhaps its penis obsession and gay hate is all just a ruse for more puerile frat house humor. As it plays today, however, it’s more embarrassing than entertaining.