Ride Along - Movie Review
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
There's a decent premise to this action-comedy, but the filmmakers can't be bothered to put in the effort to actually make it funny or exciting. Instead, they sit back and hope that the fast-talking Kevin Hart holds our interest. Thankfully, he's quite a lot of fun to watch, creating a likeable character out of an utter moron and generating a few good laughs along the way as he bounces off the other characters.
Hart plays Ben, a videogame addict who wants to spin his career as a school guard into a place at the Atlanta Police Academy. His sexy fiancee Angela (Sumpter) has a brother, James (Cube), who's an undercover detective and wants Ben to prove himself worthy of his sister. So he takes Ben on a ride-along, which he and his partners (Leguizamo and Callen) set up as a series of humiliations. Then Ben inadvertently discovers a few clues in their ongoing case to find mythical arms dealer Omar (Fishburne). And what started as a joke becomes rather a lot more explosive.
Yes, the film is packed with the usual fiery explosions and massive car chases punctuated by Hart's non-stop comedy patter. Ben is the standard cocky, annoying idiot who we know will become someone completely different by the end of the movie (see Beverly Hills Cop, Rush Hour, The Heat, et al). But this allows us to engage with Hart from the beginning, and he finds some sharp humour along the way. Cube, on the other hand, never remotely convinces as a hardened cop; we know he's a big softy. And poor Sumpter, virtually the only female on-screen, struggles to add spice to a thankless role that plays out exactly as the formula demands.
All of this is assembled with such lazy writing and direction that it shouldn't work at all. Fortunately, the movie's energetic pace keeps us from being bored, and there's a certain mindless entertainment value as long as you think reckless endangerment is funny. Even so, most of the gags are deeply simplistic, the violence is far too brutal for a comedy and the ultimate message is seriously dodgy: that a gaming nerd has all the experience he needs to face real-world bullets.
Facts and Figures
Year: 2014
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 99 mins
In Theaters: Friday 17th January 2014
Box Office USA: $134.1M
Box Office Worldwide: $153M
Budget: $25M
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Production compaines: Universal Pictures
Reviews
Contactmusic.com: 2.5 / 5
Rotten Tomatoes: 17%
Fresh: 21 Rotten: 100
IMDB: 6.1 / 10
Cast & Crew
Director: Tim Story
Producer: Ice Cube, Matt Alvarez, Larry Brezner, William Packer
Screenwriter: Greg Coolidge, Jason Mantzoukas, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi
Starring: Ice Cube as James, Kevin Hart as Ben, John Leguizamo as Santiago, Tika Sumpter as Angela, Laurence Fishburne as Omar, Bruce McGill as Lt. Brooks, Bryan Callen as Miggs, Gary Weeks as Dr. Cowan, Gary Owen as Crazy Cody, Jay Pharoah as Runflat, Jasmine Burke as Gina, David Banner as Pawnshop Jay, Aaron Saxton as Roberto, Lucius Baston as Ballsdeep 23, Tom Waite as Serbian Arms Dealer (uncredited)
Also starring: Dragos Bucur, Matt Alvarez, Larry Brezner, Greg Coolidge, Jason Mantzoukas, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi