Will Ferrell plays a white collar criminal paying a black guy to prepare him for prison in Get Hard, the feature directing debut of writer Etan Cohen (Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder, Men In Black 3). I’ve always liked to imagine Etan Cohen as Ethan Coen with a Wario mustache (probably unfair, possibly racist).
Impressively, this new red band trailer took a full 40 seconds before the first prison rape joke (less impressively, it milks said joke for the next 15). The twist here is that Kevin Hart, the guy Will Ferrell pays to teach him how to be a thug, isn’t actually a thug. I want to hate this idea, but I like what I know of Cohen’s work (even Men In Black 3 was better than it had any right to be) and his Tropic Thunder work makes me think this will be at least slightly satirical. That, and it won me over with a blackface joke halfway through the trailer. I’m a simple man.
I admit it, I laughed. “You’re a disappointment to your parents. WHO I F*CKED.”
Get Hard opens March 27th.