Ben is a diminutive school security guard and shoot-'em-up video game addict. Wanting to marry Angela, he is persuaded to join her brother James, a cop, on his various cop stuff bits and pieces, to prove he is worthy of James' approval.
I watched the trailer with trepidation. It contained a number of things I have trouble with. One is black US urban patois - as an aged white Brit, I often have trouble understanding it. And another was Kevin Hart as Ben. Not a performer I am familiar with, it was clear that his schtick included loudness, and crossing his eyes while making faces because that's funny. I suspected that I would dislike Mr Hart's performance.
But I'm not one to pre-judge, so I thought I would give it a chance. Guess what? I had trouble understanding a lot of the dialogue, and I hated the loud face-pulling antics of Mr Hart.
But fairly early on there was a bit where, as school security guard, he is talking to a student who is about to play hookey. This is quite a funny piece, and it also gave his character some substance - passion and empathy. And that was something I hadn't expected, and which surfaced quite frequently during the rest of the film.
Don't get me wrong, this is a completely cliché'd buddy-cop, fish-out-of-water formula comedy with absolutely no surprises whatsoever. But, within those limitations, I enjoyed it much more than I had expected to.
I watched the trailer with trepidation. It contained a number of things I have trouble with. One is black US urban patois - as an aged white Brit, I often have trouble understanding it. And another was Kevin Hart as Ben. Not a performer I am familiar with, it was clear that his schtick included loudness, and crossing his eyes while making faces because that's funny. I suspected that I would dislike Mr Hart's performance.
But I'm not one to pre-judge, so I thought I would give it a chance. Guess what? I had trouble understanding a lot of the dialogue, and I hated the loud face-pulling antics of Mr Hart.
But fairly early on there was a bit where, as school security guard, he is talking to a student who is about to play hookey. This is quite a funny piece, and it also gave his character some substance - passion and empathy. And that was something I hadn't expected, and which surfaced quite frequently during the rest of the film.
Don't get me wrong, this is a completely cliché'd buddy-cop, fish-out-of-water formula comedy with absolutely no surprises whatsoever. But, within those limitations, I enjoyed it much more than I had expected to.