Chris Rock is one of the greatest stand-ups ever, but when you watch him methodically and forcibly attack his jokes, it can feel like he wants to dominate the audience. There’s none of that in Hart, and Let Me Explain hits because it’s possible to feel not only a connection to his jokes, but to him as a person. “I’m going to destroy them tonight” is the type of thing that would be heard in comedy clubs across the country. Somewhere over the last 30 years or so, it became cool for comedians to develop an antagonistic relationship with their audience. There’s an axiom that says “truth in comedy,” and Hart’s insecurity around the end of his marriage and his own masculinity is where Let Me Explain’s comedy comes from. He goes from talking about wanting to be a better father to how he wouldn’t know what to do if he ever caught his ex-wife giving another man a blow job (he’s so short he might accidentally head-butt the guy right in his erection). A bit about trying to save his marriage descends into talking about doing ecstasy for the first time and a pantomime of making sweet, sweet love to a beanbag chair.
Hart’s 2011 divorce runs throughout the entire special. He blends frantic silliness and honesty in a way that no one at his level is doing today. Let Me Explain is Kevin Hart as Kevin Hart. While Laugh at My Pain was brilliant in small spurts, Let Me Explain is even better, a performance by a comedian at the height of his powers (something the film wants us to remember, which is why its first fifteen minutes are taken up by a mini-documentary of Hart’s hugely successful international tour).
#KEVIN HART FULL STAND UP STREAM LAUGH AT MY PAIN MOVIE#
I don’t even have a fucking house.” In that way, the movie was a mission statement, establishing Hart’s brand of comedy, which has always contained elements from prior greats: Bill Cosby’s storytelling ability Eddie Murphy’s charm, energy, and ability to play characters Louis C.K.’s self-exploration Chris Rock’s pointedness George Carlin’s ability to build momentum Dave Chappelle’s ease Woody Allen’s height. In Laugh at My Pain, he tells a joke about how he might be doing well financially, but he’s nothing compared to his athlete friends: “Dwyane Wade tried to make me buy a boat. Hart’s best jokes contrast bravado and masculinity with insecurity and self-deprecation. His starring role in 2012’s hit comedy Think Like a Man solidified his position as one of the hottest comedians in Hollywood - he currently has about half a dozen film projects in the works, as well as a hit BET show, Real Husbands of Hollywood.Īs Hart explained in Laugh at My Pain, his bad luck turned around when he started doing more personal material onstage, talking about his family - his father’s coke addiction, his marriage, his children - and taking himself down a peg. 2011’s independently released Laugh at My Pain grossed $7.7 million at the box office, making it the eighth highest grossing indie film of the year. 2010’s Seriously Funny was that year’s highest rated stand-up special on Comedy Central. and Aziz Ansari, self-distributed online.) And whatever the format, with half of 2013 down, it looks like Let Me Explain might just be the year’s best stand-up special.Īfter years of near big breaks (a 2001 co-starring role in a failed Judd Apatow pilot, a 2004 sitcom that lasted only six episodes, a starring role in the film Soul Plane), Hart turned his attention to stand-up, slowly building an audience under the radar of the mainstream media. (These days, the standard route is straight to cable or, as in the case of Louis C.K. And it’s this dynamic that has helped make him arguably the biggest stand-up comedian working today, with a giant fan base that justifies the theatrical release of Let Me Explain at a time when the comedy concert movie is seen as a thing of the past.
It’s a silly little gag that nonetheless says a lot about Hart - that he’s a black comedian with a sense of showmanship who is also self-aware about not being as cool as rap stars.
Throughout his performance in the film, these bursts of fire are used to punctuate punch lines or at random moments. As Hart explains, he wanted to have the same kind of over-the-top pyrotechnics like those he had seen at a Jay-Z/Kanye West concert. Near the start of Kevin Hart’s new comedy concert film, Let Me Explain, he moseys onstage in front of a sold-out Madison Square Garden crowd, surrounded by geysers of flames jetting out from the stage.
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