I'm not going to lie. I didn't have high hopes for this movie. And that's why I went to see it. Based on the trailer and TV spots, I expected Ride Along to be another generic action comedy. In some aspects from this story, my predictions were correct. But in other aspects, I was proven dead wrong.
In the last few years, stand-up comedian Kevin Hart has had a rise in mainstream popularity. And Universal Pictures is hoping that his rise and their budget will come out with a New Years box office bang. Hart plays Ben Barber, a high school security guard/avid video gamer with high hopes of becoming a real cop. He's also got a beautiful live-in girlfriend named Angela (Tika Sumpter). But there's only one problem: Angela's brother, James (Ice Cube), a real cop with an attitude, challenges Ben to do a real-live police ride along with him to see if he has what it takes to be a cop"”but more importantly"”his qualifications to being his sister's potential husband.
Although Ride Along brings some laughs (mostly chuckles for me), it works better dramatically than comedically. It doesn't reach its potential until a warehouse scene that showcases Kevin Hart at his best. Throughout the film, it repetitively relies on Hart's likable charm, physical humor, and set-piece failures to bring the funny. But you can see most of the jokes a galaxy away.
If the movie carried wittier jokes, it could have helped us forget about the 100-minute running time that feels like 200. As for the action side, Laurence Fishburne has a character that appears late in the film strategically, but he's just another underwritten bad guy. And the big twist within this area of the plot is laughably predictable.
Also, it would be nice if Ben's girlfriend Angela (Sumpter) were written to do more as a character, but the heart of the film focuses on the relationship between James and Ben. Sorry, ladies, but it's the greatest strength of the film. Ben desperately wants to win the approval of James, and it's within the dramatic beats of this on-screen emotional arc that places you under arrest (in a good way). If the rest of the movie were as compelling, it would be the best film of the New Year. But for some reason, wishing for anything more than generic seems to be a crime.
