If age is just a number, then what does 46 really mean for the ever-hustling Kevin Hart? What does it mean if now he says he “the older you get, the less f—s you give,” and that comes five years after he titled his Netflix special, Zero F—s Given? We may not get all the answers we seek, but we do get a glimpse of how the comedian sees himself now.
The Gist: After briefly leaving the Netflix fold to film his 2023 special, Reality Check, for Peacock, Hart returned to the streaming giant in a big way.
First, Hart co-starred in a docu-special with Chris Rock, Headliners Only. Then he hosted the live Roast of Tom Brady at the Forum in Los Angeles during the Netflix is a Joke Festival. He has followed that up with this hour-plus, filmed in Miami, where he reflects on how his physical and his mental health has shifted in his mid-40s.
What Comedy Special Will It Remind You Of? Kevin Hart clearly operates his life on a different plane from the rest of us, but he nevertheless tries to make himself relatable through stories about his own foibles, which makes him closer to Chris Rock than to Dave Chappelle.
KEVIN KWAN/NETFLIX
Memorable Jokes: Two stories make up the bulk of this special.
There’s a chunk of about 20 minutes devoted to the mere seconds Hart spent racing retired NFL running back Stevan Ridley in 2023, which ended with Hart pulling up lame. He ruptured both of his abdominal abductors trying to out-sprint Ridley on the street in the middle of the night, and Hart details how he wound up in the ER, then a wheelchair for six weeks afterward.
The last 20 minutes, similarly, takes us with him and his family to Rwanda, the one event his sprinting mishap didn’t completely disrupt. In Rwanda, Hart, his wife and his two older kids signed up for an expedition tracking gorillas in the wild. Would you believe the comedian didn’t know how to behave himself in this situation?
Our Take: Is Hart acting his age by having an all-female classical quartet fronted by pianist Chloe Flower perform “The Overture” to introduce him to the stage?
A more interesting moment happens during Hart’s comedy overture to the audience, where he volunteers that he has become the point person for gathering his assorted relatives together for events and functions, and specifically cites the time his nephew asked Kev to arrange an impromptu reunion so he could come out as gay. “Nobody’s shocked by this information,” Hart recalls saying on behalf of his entire family. “We don’t give a s–t. We’re family. We love you.”
So when a few minutes later, Hart claims: “I’m not the same man I used to be,” what’s left unsaid here is how the comedian is indirectly addressing the problems he had created for himself years ago by not feeling the same way when he was younger about hypothetically having a gay child.
The 40-something version of Hart says “I just wanna get to that age where I can say whatever the fuck is on my mind,” which might sound weird to anyone who thinks he’s already accomplished that, until you hear how he describes the final interviews of the late Quincy Jones.
In the meantime, Hart at least is making an effort to show us sides of himself that are much more relatable than the versions of him we see onscreen and in the tabloids. He’s really just as normal as the other guys who buy boner pills at the gas station, or has trouble digesting a Chick-Fil-A spicy chicken sandwich. He still has his comedy posse, whom he relies on not just for friendship, but also for material. Here he’s making fun of his buddy Spank Horton for considering ginger ale as medicine. And Hart has his own fears; among them, falling in the shower and unable to get up, getting addicted to pills, and getting so old that he begins suffering from dementia.
For now, though, the only thing Hart may really have to fear is what’ll happen the next time he runs into Michael Jordan!
Our Call: I don’t know that I’d want to find myself in a risky situation with Hart in real life, but from the safety of home, no matter how cringey it gets, Hart’s centerpiece stories are worth it to STREAM IT.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
