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Ride
Along (2/10)
by Tony
Medley
Runtime
97 minutes.
Not for
children.
I often
listen to a sports talk show called Mike and Mike in the Morning. A
couple of days ago they were parroting that their guest was going to be
Kevin Hart, who happens to be the costar of this film. One of the hosts,
called Greenie, said something to the effect that Hart was “the funniest
man alive.” The funniest men I have ever heard are Richard Pryor and
Steve Martin (as a monologist). Pryor is no longer with us, but Martin’s
monologues still make me laugh decades after I heard them.
When
Greenie said this, though, I had already sat through Ride Along,
which was my first exposure to Hart. If this is an example of what
Greenie thinks is funny he must find things as mundane as watching
someone walk down the street funny, because there is nothing in this
movie that shows Hart as being even remotely humorous.
To give
Hart some credit, though, when he was interviewed by Greenie on the
radio, he told a story about pronouncing the word “psyche” that was in
the script. He said he had never seen the word before so he pronounced
it phonetically (try it) and got nothing but quizzical looks from the
crew. He said it over and over and finally they asked him what he was
saying and he pointed it out in the script, at which time they told him
how it was pronounced, after everyone laughed themselves silly. This was
a charmingly self-deprecating story that was ingratiating, so I’m not
going to write him off just because of a bad script and weak director.
Directed by Tim Story, this is so silly, so full of plotholes, so
unfunny, so hackneyed that it would have been rejected as a B movie back
in the ‘40s. Hart plays an inept boyfriend to Ice Cube’s sister who
wants to become a policeman like Ice Cube. Ice Cube invites him to “ride
along” with him one day, and, naturally, that’s the day when Ice Cube
gets a chance to bring down the criminal he’s been tracking for a long
time.
Hart
bumbles and stumbles and makes one foreseeable mistake after another.
But, surprise surprise!, his ineptitude and courage finally save the
day.
I have
seen Ice Cube when he was really funny, in 21 Jump Street (2012)
where his deadpan humor as an always angry police boss was one of the
funniest bits in the movie. Here, however he reprises that role as he is
always angry but he’s not funny. He’s given no help by a script that
seems to have been written by a community of writers, so many that I
won’t mention them here. Multiple writing credits are always a bad sign,
and the omen is fulfilled by this movie that pictures Hart as being
ridiculously stupid and tries to masquerade that as humor. It’s not
funny and neither is this movie.
January
17, 2014
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