Kevin Hart’s new Netflix hour delves into his insecurities more than his irresponsibilities. Which is OK. Even if the intro and show description might mislead you into thinking about what he’ll talk about in this hour. He filmed this special last year on tour (I saw it live in Montreal last July during Just For Laughs).
As I wrote in my review for Decider:
Hart is best onstage when he leans into the situations that make him most vulnerable. Whether that’s traveling in Japan without an interpreter, dealing with actual shit on the carpet of his home and not knowing whose it is, or learning how to ski in Aspen.
And he’s best onscreen when he has a foil — in his movies, he attains that chemistry with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and in a brilliant closing bit, Hart finds a comedic nemesis in Seal, worried that the singer will “out-black” Kev during his “black week” in Aspen. His family’s failure on the slopes is full of callbacks, cinematic in its description, and also exposes all of his vulnerabilities once more.