Ride Along (2014)
Directed by Tim Story
For the past two years, high-school security guard Ben has been trying to show decorated APD detective James that he's more than just a video-game junkie who's unworthy of James' sister, Angela. When Ben finally gets accepted into the academy, he thinks he's earned the seasoned policeman's respect and asks for his blessing to marry Angela. Knowing that a ride along will demonstrate if Ben has what it takes to take care of his sister, James invites him on a shift designed to scare the hell out of the trainee. But when the wild night leads them to the most notorious criminal in the city, James will find that his new partner's rapid-fire mouth is just as dangerous as the bullets speeding at it.
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5 films that influenced Ride Along
What critics say influenced Ride Along
“Ride Along” quotes directly from such genre touchstones as “Training Day” and “Lethal Weapon” while indirectly calling to mind the likes of “Bad Boys,” “Midnight Run” and this past summer’s “The Heat” — all of which offered more dimensional characters and more inspired ways of navigating this well-trodden ground.
(The movie at least has the decency to acknowledge that its premise will remind you of the far superior “Training Day.”)
In fact, the movie makes repeated reference to “Training Day.”
In point of fact, "Ride Along" points out several times that what it is is a comedically rebooted " Training Day ," this time with glowering but teddy-bearish Ice Cube in the Denzel role and Hart…well, you can't say he's in the Ethan Hawke role.
Though it starts off more like a comedic variation on Training Day, Ride Along also bears more than a passing resemblance to last summer’s odd couple cop comedy The Heat, in which by-the-book Fed Sandra Bullock and unhinged Boston cop Melissa McCarthy bickered and took down bad guys while becoming best friends.
Think a low-rent "Training Day" but played for laughs.
This is more in the vein of the "Rush Hour" flicks where it's funny to see little, five-foot-tall Kevin Hart get body slammed by Morpheus or for Ice Cube to toss a football at the back of Jay Pharoah's head (the "SNL" star has a funny cameo as a neighborhood snitch).
The motor-mouth comic takes on what’s essentially the loquacious Chris Tucker role from the “Rush Hour” movies, with Ice Cube standing in for Jackie Chan in the laconic straight-man part.
If there’s a surprise in this movie, it’s that Hart is marginally more restrained than his obvious influence: Chris Tucker in the “Rush Hour” movies.
Most of all, Ride Along seems struck from the same template that produced the Rush Hour series, which paired an all-business Jackie Chan with the live-wire Chris Tucker for comic effect.
Kevin Hart (left) and Ice Cube star in "Ride Along," a story about unusual police partners with a plot that might sound familiar to anyone who saw "48 Hrs." in 1982 or "Rush Hour" in 1998.
So even though Kevin Hart is basically playing Chris Tucker in Rush Hour and Ice Cube is basically playing Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs., some of their own patented patter breaks free every now and then.
These minor disturbances end up tying into a crime ring James has been investigating for the past three years—a development which recalls another Martin & Lewis-flavored buddy-cop comedy 2010’s The Other Guys .
Over the past few years, the only worthy scrapings from the bottom of this cinematic barrel have been oddball comedic jazz riffs such as “The Other Guys,” “21 Jump Street” and “The Heat.”
Ride Along doesnt offer the randomness and digressions of the similar, superior The Other Guys, and once again I find myself wondering what the film mightve been like if Hart and Ice Cube had swapped roles and played against their personae.
It has no pretensions to anything beyond that unlike, say, Adam Sandler’s last outing, “Grown Ups 2.” Despite the involvement of four writers, it isn’t very clever, but if Ice Cube and Kevin Hart strike you as a funny combination, you may find it amusing.
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Hart, the actor/comedian who has broken through huge in both stand-up comedy and movies in the last couple of years, stars as Ben Barber, a video-game-obsessed layabout who, like Mark Wahlberg in “ Ted ” before him, is pretty chiseled and muscular for someone who supposedly spends most of his spare time gaming.