This movie is like a really, really, really fat woman who is pretty ...
It is kind of repulsive the way it plays to stereotypes and goes over the top so often it kind of makes one sick, but you can tell that it meant well and parts of it were very human and positive.
I just finished watching it, and I cannot figure out whether to rate it plus or minus. I was so offended by the scenes where Kevin Hart was such a crude idiot, and yet somehow he was a "magic negro" that taught the repressed and paralyzed white man how to live. If I was black that kind of trope is such a mind-fuck, I think I would really resent it. I remember once watching an action movie and a group of young black people were sitting not far away from me. I felt sad to hear them laughing as they pointed out how the movies treat black characters. They knew when one of the black soldiers was going to die, and were laughing about it. That is the systemic racism in our system is so ingrained and taken for granted that most people do not even see it.
Also, there is virtually nothing said about the real story here. It says at the end that the two are still friends. Presumably this is based on experiences that happened long ago that someone thought they could spin into a yarn and make a movie out of. I'd be more interested in the actual reality.
Was Phillip ... and I really hated how they kept calling each other by their first initials, really paying this guy $2,600 a week. And it was odd because they show up his paycheck and I don't recall any taxes being withheld?
That is just a mere 135K per year, and this guy is living in New York? Then he gets his painting sold ... for $50K, and all of a sudden he can buy a house for his ex-wife?
The movie asks more questions than it answers, and though it was kind of cute, it quickly gets to the point of cloyingly nauseating.
It was also hard for me to watch because I just cannot stand Kevin Hart. To his credit he was not totally horrible in this, but I am surprised I could make it to the end of the movie.