“Ride Along”
Directed by Tim Story
Universal Pictures
2.0 / 5.0 paws
“Ride Along” is the most predictable film released to the viewing masses in months. One rough-and-tough cop, along with his newbie, loud-mouthed tagalong, go on an insignificant mission together only to be caught up in the biggest scheme their police station has ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKPULWWK-Xk
Of course, there’s supposed to be comedy strewn throughout. “Ride Along,” however, employs so many clichés that it’s hard to find much value in its buddy cop antics besides providing an escape from the world to watch Kevin Hart get teased unmercifully for 100 minutes. Though to be fair, “Ride Along” does a fairly good job at that in particular.
Hart’s character Ben, constantly teased for his short stature, has been dating the girl of his dreams, Angela (Tika Sumpter), for two years and finally wants to propose to her. He goes off to retrieve a blessing from Angela’s brother James (Ice Cube), who has always thought of Ben as a terribly incompetent boyfriend for his sister. James is an Atlanta police detective who has spent several years working on a high-profile case to find Omar, a mysteriously unseen criminal figurehead, and has no time or patience for Ben’s nonsensical questions.
When Ben is accepted into the police academy, able to quit his unsatisfying job as a high school security guard, James gets the idea to take the new rookie on a “ride along” in his cop car around Atlanta, spending a day answering any emergency calls that come in. James initially hopes to test Ben’s worth, sure he’s going to crack after a few hours out on the field. However, both of them wind up in a dangerously crazy scenario fueled by Ben’s hijinks that nearly get them killed by the hour.
Each mission the two go on follows the generic pattern of partnership development that has been covered in every film depicting a traveling escapade between friends from “Road to Singapore” to “48 Hrs.” to “Rush Hour.” Ben is overly eccentric, with a running gag that his extensive knowledge of a “Call of Duty”-esque video game makes him knowledgeable about Omar’s henchmen. James is a stern wisecracker, always jumping to conclusions about Ben’s incompetence until Ben eventually does so much good that it’s hard to ignore.
It’s all very obvious, but that is to be expected when the two co-stars are perfectly conventional actors for their respective roles and have both worked with director Tim Story in prior films. Hart’s been seeing a fortunate rise in popularity for acting in a few recent well-received films. His 2012 work with Story, “Think Like a Man,” is passable, giving Hart time to shine as an off-kilter romantic lead. In turn, Hart is a qualified choice to play Ben, always there to get the last word, able to fall into jokes at the flip of a switch.
Ice Cube, who starred in Story’s 2002 breakout hit “Barbershop,” finds a little less time to entertain in “Ride Along,” often prone to staring angrily at Hart, but still manages to employ his rowdy charisma when necessary. The chemistry is there, Hart with his overly confident grin and Ice Cube with a piercing glare, but it’s definitely nothing that moviegoers haven’t seen before, even from these same actors.
It helps, at least a bit, that the script aims for too much. Ambitious to a fault, “Ride Along” extends scenes it assumes are funny to the point of boredom, Ice Cube angrily ranting through the whole thing. By sheer luck, however, the few scenes that are actually funny hit it home, letting Hart go crazy with his character’s ignorance in the field. It isn’t how a comedy film should work, per say, letting Ice Cube and Hart overshadow able supporting actors such as John Leguizamo and a surprise guest playing the role of Omar, but it works on occasion.
Already set up for a potential sequel, as all buddy cop films are, “Ride Along” is a mostly unsuccessful effort by competent people. It falls prey to the woes of overconfidence, supplying an unnecessary amount of development, but comes out with a few interesting laughs and action sequences anyway. It’s definitely no “Friday,” another Ice Cube vehicle Story clearly aims to imitate, but that isn’t to say that the formula was written incorrectly.