6. Ride Along (2014)
Actor(s) that got typecast: Kevin Hart
One of the many forgettable action comedies of recent years, Ride Along is really only notable for really kick-starting Kevin Hart’s movie career. Its mediocre plot and generic comedy weren’t enough to appropriately wow critics or audiences, but it was a moderate success, particularly as it highlighted Kevin Hart’s own specific acting talent. It also marked the beginning of a string of remarkably similar movies that continues all the way up to the present for the comedian.
Ride Along is a buddy comedy first and an action movie second. This specific idea has popped up a number of times in Kevin Hart’s career in the years since, with movies like Get Hard and Central Intelligence fitting a very similar mold. Many of his other movies in recent years (both the successful and the unsuccessful) have followed a similar track: Night School, Me Time, and the Jumanji movies have employed similar buddy comedy elements, with Hart always playing essentially the same character. Just like in Ride Along, Hart plays the slightly uptight comic foil to a bigger, cooler, or more confident co-star.
Hart’s characters usually have some deep-seated insecurity to overcome and are usually far less confident and cool than they attempt to convey to their friends and family. This trend works well for Hart: it suits him, he pulls it off respectably, and it’s led to his massive success. Ride Along was the movie that seemed to mark the beginning of that career trend, which is perhaps one of its most notable qualities.