get hard, a new will ferrell-kevin hart buddy comedy about a white-collar investor about to enter prison, is funnier than the poster image of a white man in cornrows makes it appear. in an era where most comedies are either obsessed with genre self-awareness (think phil lord and chris miller) or still running on a male-id algorithm programmed in the '90s (think adam sandler. . . or don't), it's refreshing to see one tuned into a present day that exists beyond the movies. ferrell plays james king, a pompous bel air one-percenter who practices capoeira on his mansion's manicured front lawn and has sex with his young fiancã©e (alison brie) on top of floor plans for an even bigger mansion. on the eve of being made partner at his firm, and shortly after soloing over john mayer during a house party performance, james is arrested for embezzlement and fraud and sentenced to 10 years in san quentin state prison. meanwhile, his car washer, darnell (hart), is fighting to get his family out of the troubled l.a. neighborhood of crenshaw and into the middle class. a racially motivated misunderstanding leads to a business opportunity: hiding his squeaky-clean record, darnell will train james in the way of prison culture so he can survive on the inside. give credit where credit is due: this is a great concept for a comedy in 2015. it allows the filmmakers to play hot-button bingo with race, class, and the prison-industrial complex in ways that feel dangerous without being crass. take the funny bit where darnell, trying to demonstrate his faux-toughness, refers to his wife in a derogatory manner and is immediately punished for it. the joke sides with his wife. and james' assumption that darnell went to prison raises questions, obviously, about the ideas he carries, which are hardly unique to his fictional self. later, darnell enlists james's underpaid groundskeepers — clad in hand-me-downs like a "too big to fail-palooza" business retreat t-shirt — to assist the "hardening" process. the movie walks a fine line, but it never goes sour, because it keeps punching up.
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