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Ride Along

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Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in a scene from Ride Along (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)
Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in a scene from Ride Along (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)
What it's about:

Fast-talking security guard Ben joins his cop brother-in-law James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta in order to prove himself worthy of marrying Angela, James' sister.

What we thought:

With this movie being at the top of the international box office for three weeks I was really excited to go and see it. I like buddy cop movies and I thought it would be something like a cross between Bad Boys and  21 Jump Street. It was neither.

The plot follows the tried and tested recipe (yawn): good cop who does his own thing, dirty cops who betray and the cat and mouse game with a crime kingpin who manages to elude the police force for what seems to have been forever.

Kevin Hart plays the smart mouthed, fast talking Ben. Kevin Hart is Kevin Hart: he is funny,  provides  lots of entertaining moments and  basically carries the movie. I was a bit perplexed by his character though; he wants to be a policeman but really doesn’t seem to have the balls to be one.  On this ride along, he is tested with different scenarios and each one turns out to be an epic fail. Seriously if he was a policeman in real life I would be very afraid. And also I want to know how he managed to land a girl as hot as Angela (Tika Sumpter)?

Ice Cube plays the hardcore Atlanta detective James. He is a bit of a rogue cop who  breaks all the rules and  doesn’t even have a partner because he has  trust issues.  James is a detached character who lives for the job, and besides his love for his sister and his very obvious dislike of Ben you don’t really get to know him as a character.

Hart and Cube work good together as a team which provides  some really funny moments and sharp one-liners, but in essence there really isn’t anything new to see here. Even the ‘action scenes’ are a bit watered down. Just as long as the ride along was for Ben, this movie was for me. I got bored and distracted. You might enjoy this movie for the entertainment value but don’t expect a real story.

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