'Get Hard'

Are you a 13 year-old white boy who comes from a middle-income family? Are you terrified of your sexuality (whatever that is) and the world in general? And do you need to do something naughty and rebellious to release your misplaced aggression? Then you are going to love "Get Hard."

Middle schools across the country will be buzzing with clandestine conversations: "Oh my God, Will Ferrell almost puts a dick in his mouth for real. I'm not even kidding! And you actually see the dick. And Will Ferrell actually touches it. And the dick even comes back to him in a flashback. It's so gross!"

If you're an adult who appreciates the humor of two great comedians, Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, you'll be disappointed.

The movie is about a wealthy and witless hedge funds manager James King (Ferrell) who jumps to the conclusion that his building's car-washer, Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart), has been to prison merely because he is black. But a convict is a commodity to King, as he has been wrongly sentenced to San Quentin State Prison for tax evasion.

Lewis needs $30,000 to start his own car wash and move his daughter to a better school system. For this fee, he pretends to be a stereotype and spends a month teaching the timid tycoon how to "get hard" for life on the inside.

The filmmaking team makes "Get Hard" look like a profitable plan for a sophomoric satire. Director Ethan Cohen and producer Adam McKay attempt to bring together Hart and Ferrell, two of the most reliably bankable stars in comedy. Cohen also collaborated on the script with Jay Martel and Ian Roberts the writing-producers of the hit sketch comedy show "Key and Peele."

The film begins with a close-up of Will Ferrell looking as unappealing as possible: He's sobbing and snot is running down his face (proving once again that Ferrell is at his best when he looks his worst).

After this teaser we flashback to a few weeks earlier, when King was on top of the world, living in a palatial mansion and sleeping next to a beautiful girlfriend. Then he steps out of bed and parades around the house naked. After all, this is Ferrell's shtick, right? He shocks us into laughing at his oversized id. This is why we love him.

But a particularly tedious and two-dimensional plot follows: His girlfriend is shrewish and self interested, and his father-in-law boss is so obviously a shyster that King make Forrest Gump look like Stephen Hawking.

Hart has some set-ups for quality comic moments. Lewis sets up the mogul's mansion as a prison to train King for life "in the yard." The panicky Ferrell must keep from being stabbed while Hart skirts around him playing all of the silly, stereotypical prisoners himself. He jumps from one side of Ferrell to the other arguing with himself. At one point he plays a conversation between three different people. It's a funny idea, and Hart gives it a good go, but the whole thing drags on too long. This is a typical problem with the sketches in this piece.

At another time, Hart tries to pass this off the plot of "Boys N the Hood" as his life story. Again, this effort is belabored and relies on the audience's knowledge of that movie. (My guess is a lot of 13 year-old boys aren't familiar with it.)

There's a lot of controversy around this film, which is undeserved. I personally hope for much better when people say, "Stay away from this raunch-fest." I think future generations will admire this movie, as it achieves the impossible: It makes giving oral sex in a men's room look unpleasant.

Critics say it's filled with ugly "gay panic humor," and it's true that almost every joke in the film deals with prison rape. (For example: "My life's asshole is fucked." The response: "Well, if life gives you dick, make dick-aid.") But I think it's the critics that have homosexual panic if they think that being gay has anything to do with using your ass as a storage container for all manner of weaponry.

What of the portrayal of minorities, which perpetuates stereotypes and is therefore insensitive?

It's true; the white supremacists in this film are shockingly shallow. Are we really to believe that every Aryan Nationalist is a badass biker dude with a big breasted, blond girlfriend who for some inexplicable reason runs around topless in public? Then are we to believe that these half-naked women will hurl themselves on moving vehicles in an attempt to stop the car, smashing their double Ds against the glass in a manner that make a mammogram look enjoyable?

This movie will do fine at the box office because it has its audience. (Not among drunken frat boys, they're a little too sophisticated.) It will have a short life on Blu-ray until the audience graduates and starts to attend high school.