RIDE ALONG
PG-13
99 Minutes
Director: Tim Story
Writers: Greg Coolidge, Jason Mantzoukas, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi
Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Tika Sumpter
CAST
Ice Cube… James Payton
Kevin Hart…Ben Barber
John Leguizamo…Santiago
Bruce McGill…Lt. Brooks
Tika Sumpter…Angela Payton
Laurence Fishburne…Omar
Fuck The Police
Ice-T paved the way for other former rappers to play cops, like LL Cool J in NCIS: Los Angeles. So it’s not much of a shock to see AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted play a cop in film. Still, a rapper playing a cop, that’s crazy. It’s like Dr. Dre becoming a business person.
This isn’t a buddy-cop movie. That genre is too cliché. RIDE ALONG is about two men in a squad car, that don’t get along very well.
We Be (Billy) Clubbin’
Okay, let me set this movie up for you. James Payton, is on a high-speed chase, with foreign criminals, he destroys half the town, without apprehending the suspect. But, wait, there’s a twist: the police chief is an angry jerk. And this incident really pisses him off. Oh man, Ice Cube is a loose cannon.
Ben Barber is a security guard. He was just accepted into the police academy. But before he starts basic training; Ben wants to go on a ride along…with his very abrasive, future brother-in-law.
Every bad cop movie needs a villain. In this movie, it’s THE MATRIX guy. No, not that MATRIX guy, the one whose daughter does porn. Anyway, he plays the kingpin of an international criminal enterprise.
We don’t find out until the end that the other cops in the force are crooked. And they’re working for the kingpin. Laurence Fishburne makes an enticing offer to Ice Cube: work for me, and I won’t shoot you, and c’mon, we’d make good partners. But Ice Cube has far too much integrity to accept the deal.
This film unfolds as you would expect: it doesn’t. If only it wasn’t a little more self-aware. They could’ve worked the satirical angle. Like THE HEAT.
Kevin Hart has overextended himself. He’s trying too hard to be the next Eddie Murphy. That last standup special was very half-Harted. As a comedian, you can get away with being a funny guy that appears in bad movies, like Chris Rock. But if you’re an unfunny comedian, that appears in bad movies, then you’re Martin Lawrence.
I’m a fan of Ice Cube’s road trip movies…I mean his music. So it’s tough for me to criticize him. But he’s become what he’s always despised: a studio gangsta.
Today was not a good day.
Final Verdict: 10 out of 100
Sidenote: Brace yourself, there are rumors of a sequel
