Writer Tells Kevin Hart to Step It Up

A writer for FSU News feels like Kevin Hart can’t carry his own movies and has to settle for being a side kick too often to go to the next stage of his career.

Deion A. Sainvil writes:

This is a question I’ve wrestled with ever since I finished seeing Think Like a Man in theaters: when will Kevin Hart carry a movie on his own?

…Let’s get back to Eddie Murphy. Please understand that this is from a millennial speaking on something that occurred over twenty years before he was born. But I’ve done enough research and seen enough interviews to know what I’m talking about when I say Beverly Hills Cop was Eddie Murphy’s first breakout film. Prior to that he was in Trading Places, 48 Hours and Best Defense. In all three movies he is sharing poster space. In the first two he plays a sidekick role to a white actor and goes through enough racism to cause a nationwide outrage in today’s society. Beverly Hills Cop was when it all changed. Eddie Murphy was no longer playing second fiddle. He was the main event. There isn’t one racial slur uttered throughout the movie. In fact, Eddie’s character, Axel Foley, dances around the notion that a white cop was taking the blackness out of his partner. Since Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy has been the sole face on a poster in a majority of his movies.

Eddie owned every second of every scene in Beverly Hills Cop. He made it so that no other actor could ever play the role of Axel Foley. He’s a fast talking Detroit cop with a lot of ambition that often gets him in trouble. Once he’s out of his comfort zone it doesn’t take long for him to make it his own. The moment Axel set foot in Beverly Hills he made his presence felt and he did it with style. He was cool and confident and people took whatever he threw at them. Could the movie have been as impactful if Axel was a bumbling idiot? Maybe, but it would definitely have an effect on his career. If Axel Foley were more like Inspector Clouseau it might have taken a bit longer for him to do a film like Boomerang.

The thing with Kevin Hart is that his comedic style feeds off other people’s reactions. Eddie’s style feeds off of Eddie. To speak in basketball terms Kevin Hart is a playmaker and Eddie is a baller who can create his own shot. Kevin Hart is Steve Nash and Eddie Murphy is Allen Iverson. Kevin Hart can be Allen Iverson if he had the right pieces. All he needs is the right role and script once and he can be the main event for the rest of his career. All it takes is one knockout performance.

It doesn’t even matter if there are some flops afterwards, the name still holds weight. Once again, look at Eddie Murphy’s career. He has plenty of flops and he’s still the main event in his other films. Even when he isn’t in the spotlight he can steal the show, does anybody remember his Oscar nod for Dreamgirls? These are things that Kevin Hart can do right now if he wasn’t always the sidekick or the wisecracking friend.