Recently, I told my partner for my podcast, Down & Out Reviews, to watch Top Secret! (1984).  For some reason, he came back with the request that I watch Die Hart.  My first reaction was, “Ugh.”  I thought I knew what I was getting into, but apparently there is a comedy series of the same title.  Please note that I am reviewing the movie because that is what we do here at The Legionnaire.  I have no idea how similar they are to one another, but I said “Ugh” at this suggestion because I am a little tired of Kevin Hart’s antics.  The movie of his that I enjoyed the most was Fatherhood (2021).  I like it because he actually has to act in it instead of acting like Kevin Hart, if you get my meaning?  If I must endure the full Hart, then I suppose you should give me the two Jumanji films.  Otherwise, like Die Hart, it is a hard pass.

The one saving grace of Die Hart is something I noticed right before I hit play: eighty-five minutes in length.  Yes!  Remember what I was just saying about being tired of Kevin Hart.  Apparently, he is too.  In this film he plays himself, and we meet him when he goes on one of those daytime talk shows to promote a new movie he has made.  It is more of the so-called comedy stuff we are used to seeing from him, and he berates everyone for not taking him seriously before storming off the set.  As Danny Morrison (Brandon Quinn), Kevin’s agent, catches up to him, Kevin states his desire to become an action star.  Danny thinks this is a crazy idea until the next day he gets a call from well-known action director Claude Van De Velde (Jean Reno).  Claude believes in Kevin’s talent as an actor and wants to give him a shot.  There is one catch: Kevin most attend an action star school.  This is no joke.  It is what it is actually called.  Kevin, at first, says he needs no training and is ready right now to start shooting.  This proves nearly disastrously wrong when he is asked to jump between buildings outside the party at which they meet, and almost dies in the process.  Thus, Kevin heads to Ron Wilcox’s (John Travolta) action star school.  Walking into the abandoned warehouse, Kevin happens upon a couple men threatening Ron, but Kevin thinks this is the beginning of his training.  He continues to believe this until he is knocked unconscious by one of the thugs with a baseball bat.  When he comes to, Ron tries to tell him that it had been a fake bat, though Kevin does not believe it.  Get ready for a lot of complaining, which is a running gag throughout the proceedings as being part of what it means to be Kevin Hart.  Ron has a number of crazy rules, including taking Kevin’s cell phone and forbidding the student from leaving the premises.  The accommodations are also a slight step above those of a prison cell.  Further, Ron treats Kevin like garbage, further putting the actor on edge, especially when he is lit on fire on his first day while practicing saving people from a burning building.  It is while he is performing this stunt that another applicant arrives, Jordan King (Nathalie Emmanuel).  She is there not just to learn the tricks of the trade, but because she believes doing so will lead to her first big break in showbusiness.  Given the way Ron has been behaving, Kevin sees Jordan as a potential ally in subverting what he sees as Ron’s evil schemes.  As Jordan and Kevin continue on, going through different standard action stuff together, Kevin becomes more convinced that Ron is trying to kill him.  At the same time, we also learn that Claude is nearby, and that there are cameras hidden around the building that are recording the training that is taking place.  Further, Ron is in on the charade.  Nonetheless, Kevin is trying to find evidence of Ron’s wrong doing, convinced that the teacher murdered one of the men Kevin saw when he first arrived.  To do so, he and Jordan break into his office, which is against one of the rules, and end up taking a necklace he suspects belongs to the victim. The next day, before Kevin can say anything, one of Ron’s former students, Josh Hartnett (as himself), comes to speak about the benefits of the school.  This also happens to be the day that they are learning to use guns, though Kevin says that he is not participating because he has told himself that there is live ammunition in them.  Instead, while everyone else is distracted, he tries to escape, which he has to do on foot because his car has been wrecked.  He makes it to a lone trailer in the woods and calls Danny, though the agent is not much help.  The call is cut short when the owner of the premises (Stephan Jones) gets trapped under his truck and Kevin must save him.  This feat of heroism convinces him to return to the school, though we quickly find out that this is also part of Claude’s filming.  For Kevin, his return is greeted with apologies, but these are short lived as Josh Hartnett’s car is blown up by Diego’s (Kenneth Trujillo) men.  He is a Columbian drug lord, and it was his other associates that Ron had been dealing with earlier.  Diego next kills Ron, after getting a pep talk from Kevin about the need to apologize.  At this point, Jordan reveals that up until now, this had all been part of a movie Claude had been making.  This, though, is supposedly real.  It obviously is not and there is a bunch of familiar action schlock tropes until we get to the final surprise that it really is all part of a movie.  Kevin is thankful, but the public, as seen on that talk show from earlier, sees a squirrel who distracted Diego at the end, to be the real star.  The end.

Top Secret! is a funny movie.  Die Hart is not, so there is your comparison.  All the same, no review here on The Legionnaire would be complete without giving you my Catholic perspective.  Die Hart is not the worst movie I have seen.  What is jarring about it, though, is the amount of swearing in it.  It is no exaggeration to say that every other word is a curse word.  I have heard priests use such language before, not to mention its saturation in our culture.  Still, I find that it is a verbal crutch, in addition to being a minor sin.  The aspect of the film that is more pleasing to this Catholic reviewer is its discussion of what it means to be a hero.  Now, this is all theoretical because everything that happens on the screen is not real.  It is also meant to be watched as a comedy, so take that into consideration.  Its best line comes when somebody (I forget who) tells Kevin to be the action hero he wants to see in the world.  It is a derivation of a quote from Mahatma Gandhi.  Replace “action hero” with “change” and you have the idea.  It is a concept Christians have borrowed.  It is a great line to keep in mind when you are trying to evangelize.  It speaks to the benefits of not simply telling others to follow Jesus, but to live that life, too.  There is authenticity in doing so, and that is something that attracts others.  It is also the opposite of this movie.

Watch Top Secret! instead of Die Hart.  Yes, there is some innuendo in the former, but the latter is an assault on the senses, and not in a good way.  Kevin Hart is spoofing himself, and that is the only joke in this “comedy.”  Top Secret! has a variety of gags that remain consistently funny throughout.