Entertainment

Film Review: ‘Get Hard’

Published

11 years ago

March 27, 2015

Oakland Post

Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell in the comedy “Get Hard” (Courtesy Photo)

By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic

Pairing Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell is like mixing gasoline and fire. You know there’s going to be an uncontrollable explosion. Though Get Hard’s paint-by-numbers script is merely serviceable, and screen writer/turned director Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) hasn’t a clue about what he’s doing, the ebony and ivory actors pull this comedy off. They’re so damn funny!

The story commences in two disparate parts of L.A: In upscale Bel Air, James (Ferrell), a millionaire hedge fund manager, is about to marry his super-wealthy boss’s (Craig T. Nelson) shallow daughter (Alison Brie, Mad Men). In the working class neighborhood of Crenshaw, Darnell (Hart) lives with his wife (Edwina Findley Dickerson), a nurse, and young daughter (Ariana Neal). He owns a small carwash/detailing business that operates out of the garage of James’ high-rise office building.

James hardly notices that Darnell is the guy who services his car, until the rich dude is arrested and convicted of fraud. He’s sentenced to 10-years hard time in San Quentin and is scared to death he won’t survive. Assuming the man who washes his car has done time himself, he hires Darnell to teach him how to toughen up for the big house. James is wrong. Darnell is as middle class as the Brady Bunch, but he needs the dough to put a down payment on a new house. It’s on!

Screenwriters Jay Martel and Ian Roberts (both vets of TV’s Key and Peele), with the aid of Etan Cohen, have written a script, in the vein of Trading Places, that is a framework. They probably knocked the whole screenplay out over a game of poker and figured that the two comic actors could fill in the laughs. Cohen, who tries his hand at directing, shows little talent for the job. He sets up the camera, then he falls asleep. Minus some imaginative editing (Michael L. Sale, Tammy) in a staged prison riot scene, the film lacks style. It feels like a half-hour situation comedy that runs on for 100 minutes.

That said, it’s not like Hart or Ferrell care. They work their shtick like champs regardless. Ferrell is arguably one of the best comic actors of his generation, and Hart is the same for his. They improvise this film out of the danger zone and make it an uproarious comedy that will keep you in stitches.

Ferrell’s James is so aloof, naive and caught up in his whiteness that it is a joy to watch him transition from a snob, to a street-smart hoodlum with heart. Darnell tries to butch him up for two-thirds of the movie, but James just doesn’t get it. By the time he catches on, he reels off hostile one-liners like he was a real prison thug. As he pretends to tell off a sexually aggressive con in prison, he warns, “Hope you brought your Costco Card because you are about to get d— in bulk!” Ferrell’s characteristic charm goes a long way.

Hart moves around the set like an impish gazelle. You don’t have time to target him because he is that fast. He uses his self-deprecation, animation, vulgarity and street smarts to play a middle-class man who is pretending to be a hoodlum. Sometimes he is the aggressor in a scene, and sometimes the foil. He punches Ferrell with conviction, and takes a slug from his wife like a wimp. Together Hart and Ferrell are as funny as Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello.

As the story uncovers who stole the money and unravels Darnell’s rouse, it peppers itself with nudity, cursing, violence, racial slurs (derogatory terms for Blacks, Latinos and Jewish people), oral sex, cruising in a gay bar, hoodwinking an Aryan Race gang and gun-toting gang scenes with Darnell’s cousin Russell (T.I.). If offensive humor and situations bother you, stay home.

Check your social consciousness at the door. Forget the formulaic script and lackluster direction. Get Hard features two genius comic actors working their craft like magicians. Hart and Ferrell make this movie raunchy, silly, hysterical and fun.

Visit NNPA Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 31, 2025 – January 6, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 31, 2025 – January 6, 2026

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15 hours ago

January 2, 2026

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

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1 week ago

December 25, 2025

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Alameda County

Bling It On: Holiday Lights Brighten Dark Nights All Around the Bay

On the block where I grew up in the 1960s, it was an unwritten agreement among the owners of those row homes to put up holiday lights: around the front window and door, along the porch banister, etc. Some put the Christmas tree in the window, and you could see it through the open slats of the blinds.

Published

2 weeks ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

Christmas lights on a house near the writer’s residence in Oakland. Photo by Joseph Shangosola.

By Wanda Ravernell

I have always liked Christmas lights.

From my desk at my front window, I feel a quiet joy when the lights on the house across the street come on just as night falls.

My father, the renegade of the block, made no effort with lights, so my mother hung a wreath with two bells in the window. Just enough to let you know someone was at home.

Two doors down was a different story. Mr. King, the overachiever of the block, went all out for Christmas: The tree in the window, the lights along the roof and a Santa on his sleigh on the porch roof.

There are a few ‘Mr. Kings’ in my neighborhood.

In particular is the gentleman down the street. For Halloween, they erected a 10-foot skeleton in the yard, placed ‘shrunken heads’ on fence poles, pumpkins on steps and swooping bat wings from the porch roof. They have not held back for Christmas.

The skeleton stayed up this year, this time swathed in lights, as is every other inch of the house front. It is a light show that rivals the one in the old Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia.

I would hate to see their light bill…

As the shortest day of the year approaches, make Mr. King’s spirit happy and get out and see the lights in your own neighborhood, shopping plazas and merchant areas.

Here are some places recommended by 510 Families and Johnny FunCheap.

Oakland

Oakland’s Temple Hill Holiday Lights and Gardens is the place to go for a drive-by or a leisurely stroll for a religious holiday experience. Wear a jacket, because it’s chilly outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at 4220 Lincoln Ave., particularly after dark. The gardens are open all day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with the lights on from dusk until closing.

Alameda

Just across the High Street Bridge from Oakland, you’ll find Christmas Tree Lane in Alameda.

On Thompson Avenue between High Street and Fernside drive, displays range from classic trees and blow-ups to a comedic response to the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Lights turn on at dusk and can be seen through the first week in January.

Berkeley

The Fourth Street business district from University Avenue to Virginia Street in Berkeley comes alive with lights beginning at 5 p.m. through Jan. 1, 2026.

There’s also a display at one house at 928 Arlington St., and, for children, the Tilden Park Carousel Winter Wonderland runs through Jan. 4, 2026. Closed Christmas Day. For more information and tickets, call (510) 559-1004.

Richmond

The Sundar Shadi Holiday Display, featuring a recreation of the town of Bethlehem with life-size figures, is open through Dec. 26 at 7501 Moeser Lane in El Cerrito.

Marin County

In Marin, the go-to spot for ‘oohs and ahhs’ is the Holiday Light Spectacular from 4-9 p.m. through Jan. 4, 2026, at Marin Center Fairgrounds at 10 Ave of the Flags in San Rafael through Jan. 4. Displays dazzle, with lighted walkways and activities almost daily. For more info, go to: www.marincounty.gov/departments/cultural-services/department-sponsored-events/holiday-light-spectacular

The arches at Marin County Civic Center at 3501 Civic Center Dr. will also be illuminated nightly.

San Francisco

Look for light installations in Golden Gate Park, chocolate and cheer at Ghirardelli Square, and downtown, the ice rink in Union Square and the holiday tree in Civic Center Plaza are enchanting spots day and night. For neighborhoods, you can’t beat the streets in Noe Valley, Pacific Heights, and Bernal Heights. For glee and over-the-top glitz there’s the Castro, particularly at 68 Castro Street.

Livermore

The winner of the 2024 Great Light Flight award, Deacon Dave has set up his display with a group of creative volunteers at 352 Hillcrest Avenue since 1982. See it through Jan. 1, 2026. For more info, go to https://www.casadelpomba.com

Fremont

Crippsmas Place is a community of over 90 decorated homes with candy canes passed out nightly through Dec. 31. A tradition since 1967, the event features visits by Mr. and Mrs. Claus on Dec. 18 and Dec. 23 and entertainment by the Tri-M Honor Society at 6 p.m. on Dec. 22. Chrippsmas Place is located on: Cripps Place, Asquith Place, Nicolet Court, Wellington Place, Perkins Street, and the stretch of Nicolet Avenue between Gibraltar Drive and Perkins Street.