Ride Along

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Ride Along
Starring Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Tika Sumpter, Laurence Fishburne
Directed by Tim Story

Synopsis:
Seasoned cop James (Ice Cube) is a rogue policeman, who prefers working on his own than having a partner.  For years he's been tracking an elusive kingpin known as Omar, whom no one has ever seen.  If that wasn't enough, his sister Angela (Tika Sumpter) is in love with Ben (Kevin Hart), a wannabe cop with a big mouth whom James despises, because he feels Ben is incapable of caring for his sister.

To prove his point, he takes Ben on a  ride along, and makes it so that they come into contact with the most annoying calls to break Ben's spirit and to prevent him from eventually marrying his sister.  Instead Ben helps James in tracking down Omar, and James realizes there might be more to Ben than he thought.

Review:
When this film debuted, it came out huge, eventually grossing over $134 million dollars.  When I finally got around to seeing it, I had one question: Why?

Sure, there were some laughs, and the action was alright, but there didn't seem anything stellar to me that stuck out that would make this film the blockbuster it was.  Not disrespecting the film, it was fine, but it wasn't anything amazing.  The plot was so paper thin and uninspired you knew everything that would happen long before it did.  It followed the classic cop-buddy comedy format, which has been done to death.

One shining spot of the film was the bromace between Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.  You can tell they enjoyed themselves in the film, and that was enjoyable.  However, Hart's performance was - at times - extremely over-the-top and just annoying.  Though there were some standout moments, overall it was just tired and hackneyed.

Summary:
A funny film, but not laugh-out-loud hilarious, "Ride Along" suffers from an old cliched plot and paper-thin storytelling.

My Rating: B

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