Kaylee — Papa’s Basement 443
Co-host Howard, whom you may remember, has a fiancee. And that fiancee has a dog. A dog named Kaylee. While Howie and his better half tend to matters elsewhere, trust […]
Black people hate Will Ferrell like his birth name was Slavery Lynch’em. I have a friend named Rich who is, for lack of a better way of putting it, traditionally white in many of his mannerisms. He owns a Green Lantern shirt. His car contains Metallica CDs. He openly acknowledges OJ’s guilt. But bring up Will Ferrell and his genial smile fades, his head slowly shaking like he just heard a statue was being built in memory of James Earl Ray.
I’m not sure why such a racial divide exists when it comes to Mr. Ferrell, but it’s there. The Redskins will hoist the Lombardi Trophy once again before you hear a brother utter the words “scotchy scotch scotch.” Which is why I’m fascinated by Get Hard, a $40 million project to sell Will Ferrell to black people. Like one puts cheese around a pill to feed it to a pet, a studio decided that it was time to wrap the cheese of Kevin Hart around Mr. Ferrell and shove him down my buddy Rich’s throat. Why are studios taking the time to make black people like Will Ferrell? Who knows. Maybe a Talladega Nights sequel is in the works and they didn’t want to make a second movie that had as much appeal to the black community as the NHL playoffs.
The concept of the film is inane, even by comedic standards. From what I gather, Will Ferrell is going to prison and assumes that Kevin Hart, being black, has done time. Ferrell offers Hart a bunch of money to teach him how to survive prison, and Hart obliges because apparently this movie fights stereotypes by depicting a black guy duping a white guy out of his money via chicanery. Now, I’m no penologist, but I have watched my share of Oz reruns, and I think the only shot to surviving prison that a white guy has involves multiple Swastika tattoos and learning what “HH/88” and “14 words” mean with a quickness. But I’m going to trust my gut and assume that the movie isn’t Kevin Hart teaching Will Ferrell about white power (as hilarious as that could have been.) So what goes on in this movie is beyond me.
Actually, it isn’t beyond me. I bet Will Ferrell learns a few lessons about “real life” from Kevin Hart, the audience is subjected to some wannabe heartfelt bullshit and, in the end, the unlikely duo becomes friends. Do yourself a favor and wait until this one is on HBO in a year so you can watch 15 minutes of it and then go back to reruns of M*A*S*H on Netflix. The one good thing I can say about this abortion is that it probably will bring together black and white people who go to the movies to view it together, though only for the amount of time it takes to burn a projector screen and 150 theater chairs to the ground.
[adToAppearHere]
David on March 30, 2015
As Dr. Funkenstein said: The bigger the headache, the bigger the pill baby. They call me “The Big Pill”.