Mini Review - Ride Along

This was another movie franchise that was on my sequel baiting list… I regret nothing!

Ride Along featuring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. I should’ve known what I was in for but I didn’t stop to think. Released in 2014, the movie was financially successful, earning $150m on a $25m budget but it was slammed by critics with only an 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So why don’t I just go the whole hog and make it a rage review. Answers to follow

A dangerous and anonymous crook named Omar has been the target of detective James Payton (Ice Cube) for some time. But when a sting operation goes south and leads to a weirdly edited chase sequence, James is urged to step down from the case. Something he is not keen to do.

Meanwhile, school security guard Ben Barber (Kevin Hart) is keen to move things forward in his relationship with Angela Payton (Tika Sumpter) and has gotten into Police Academy. Keen to dissuade both of them from their choices, James offers to take Ben out for a 'ride along,' but soon things begin to spiral out of control.

OK, so we have the hard-ass and the rookie in a buddy cop duo? Why is it Zootropolis is the only buddy cop drama that steers away from this formula? Anyway, James is a hardass, he’s also a creep, neglectful, untrusting and mean… I hate him. Ben is Kevin Hart doing another obnoxious chatterbox who on this occasion thinks video games are representative of real life… I hate him too, see the problem here?

I’m not a massive fan of Kevin Hart comedy, that’s the conclusion I made from watching this and 5 minutes of Central Intelligence. That said, I didn’t mind him in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (review coming soon-ish) his non-stop talking I find more irritating than I do funny and Ice Cube’s reaction as a straight man isn’t extreme enough for the laughs to come from there. Part of this is because they know each other at least on superficial levels so there’s no surprise to James when Ben babbles, him telling Ben to shut up was my favourite part of the movie.

And the story is not really very interesting. A lot of time is dedicated to just comedic hi-jinks where Ben would prove his own ineptitude. Whilst some of them provide some insight into the ongoing narrative, it’s ultimately quite slow going, the plot only really kicks back into gear after the opening, less than 20 minutes before the end.

And the problem with having a villain who shines on being anonymous is that you don’t really see much of him as a character. He’s not interesting and while we hear that he kills his own men and such we never actually see that side of him. He has one major physical encounter with our duo, an encounter he ends up ultimately losing, so there’s not much of a threat.

The character arcs for the film are Ben learning to be less impulsive and listen and for James to soften up a bit. Except these arcs are a little muddled. I don’t really recall Ben learning anything and James’ mistrusting is justified because the only other people he trusted on this case turned on him. Which of course leads to the ‘I’m on the run’ bit… it may as well have been cut, it adds so little to the narrative when there’s like 10 minutes left of the movie.

Oh and Angela has nothing to do in the movie other than get rescued. I like that she isn’t antagonistic, but she’s also boring.

This movie is largely a miss for me, it may just be my personal distaste for Kevin Hart’s comedic style but I find him more irritating than funny. The plot is largely by-the-numbers and it’s uninspired in both its plotting and cinematography. Ice Cube’s performance is underwhelming all things considered, although the dynamic between the two remains solid. But lack of character in both its pro and antagonists pushes it well over the edge for me.

Rating 25/100