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Ride Along | 2014 | PG-13 | - 5.6.5

A high school security guard (Kevin Hart) tries to impress his fiancée's (Tika Sumpter) angry police detective brother (Ice Cube). When he enters the police academy, he thinks he deserves the same respect as seasoned officers until his soon-to-be brother-in-law takes him along on a ride to show him the difference between security guard work and that of a police patrol. Also with John Leguizamo, Bruce McGill, Bryan Callen, Laurence Fishburne and Jay Pharaoh. Directed by Tim Story. [1:40]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - A strip club scene features six voluptuous women wearing skimpy bikinis, writhing around dance poles; one of the dancers bends over and we see the tops and bottoms of her large breasts while all the other dancers reveal bare arms, shoulders, moderate to large cleavage, bare abdomens, thighs, partial buttocks and lower legs. A woman wears short-shorts that bare full legs to the thigh in several scenes. A woman wears a blouse unbuttoned to the mid-chest area, revealing significant cleavage. A shirtless man revealing bare shoulders, upper chest and arms lies in bed with a woman wearing a sleeveless blouse; the woman's brother sits in a chair beside the bed, eating breakfast, scaring the man that is in bed and making him scream.
 A man and a woman arrive home after dinner, kissing several times; she removes her jacket and he says, "You want the hammer? You're gonna get the hammer!" The woman's brother turns on a flashlight from a dark corner and tells them to stop being nasty.
 A man and his girlfriend live and he calls himself Blackhammer, explaining that when he pulls his penis out and it hits the ground you hear "BOOM!," and tells the woman that she will be Mrs. Blackhammer (she looks amused); he suggests that after dinner, they have some sweet dirty "stuff" (sex is implied) as he thrusts his hips; a male friend says through a pair of headphones on a counter that he can hear them, the man on screen says, "Fine, now everyone knows we have a nasty (kinky) household" and then kisses the woman briefly and leaves. A man calls a woman bouncy-butt and she texts him a sexual invitation. Off screen, we hear a man and a woman kiss each other briefly several times and say, "I love you."
 A large male biker tells a police trainee that the bearded man standing beside the biker is his wife. Two men say that a short man must be a super lover to attract any women; the two men grimace and groan, simulating female orgasms as a fourth man looks disgusted. A boy attempts to cause trouble for a police trainee that is questioning him by shouting, "I don't want a tattoo there! You want to see my WHAT?"

VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - At a strip club (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), a detective and a trainee confront two criminals (all the men but the trainee have guns); the trainee taunts the criminals until one of them shoots out a chandelier and a gunfight begins (two men fall, but without blood); the trainee screams and we see someone's body carried out of the club, totally wrapped in a blanket on a gurney, presumably dead. A detective outside a warehouse-garage says that he will start shooting people as soon as he gets inside, because he has shot no one all day; inside, detectives point guns at a third detective and tie him to a chair while several men in the building show off cases of firearms for illegal sale; a man enters and says that he is the ringleader (no one has ever seen the leader in person), he shoots another man in the leg, with a little blood showing and a loud shout of pain, slaps the tied-up detective in the face, pokes him with a knife, and waves a handgun at the rest of the men; another man enters, taunts the tied-up detective and the ring leader causing a large fight with gunfire, kicking and punching (several men fall and we see a little blood); one man receives a shot to the groin in close-up without blood when a man fighting with the tied-up detective after cutting him loose tosses back two live grenades and blows up parts of the warehouse (an SUV is demolished in flames) and as the detective and his sidekick run out of the building it explodes with flames; a second explosion fills the screen with rolling flames and soot and a flaming I-beam falls through a police car's rear windshield and the car goes up in flames.
 A detective and a trainee with handguns confront a criminal; the trainee shoots the criminal in the shoulder and both officers shout, frightening the criminal into giving up information. A detective and a police trainee discover that the trainee was shot through the lower leg and the injured man screams, "I'm shot! I'm shot!; the detective looks at a bloody hole in the leg and wraps a belt above the wound as a tourniquet, then commandeers a passing car, pulls the driver out and speeds the wounded man to a hospital. A police officer imagines that he shoots another man three times in the chest at point blank rage, felling the man, presumably dead, but with no blood showing.
 Two corrupt cops hold a woman captive as their crime boss enters an apartment; two other men arrive and fistfights break out after one of the cops receives a gunshot and falls unconscious (some blood is seen on one arm and shoulder); a man jumps in through the living room window, shattering it, but not harming himself and two pairs of men fight with punches, kicks and head butts; one man gets tossed into a tall bookcase with a loud crash, and a taller man swings him overhead and onto a glass coffee table destroying it with shattering glass; the woman grabs a skillet and strikes a criminal on the back of the head and then in the face, felling him and the fight proceeds outside, where a man holds a handgun pointed at a criminal who is pointing another handgun at him and holding the woman hostage until a third man slides over a car top, hitting the criminal and the detective shoots the criminal in the shoulder (we see the criminal wrapped in blankets to the chin and strapped to a gurney later; there's no blood). Two men with handguns in a dark room threaten a third man; all three men run onto the street, are joined by other men with guns, and a fight ensues (no one is hit) until two men escape on a motorcycle and ride through a large window and onto a street where they crash; both men get up and run away, one taking a car and speeding along a street; a detective chases the car in a pickup truck, as the fleeing man shoots at him, a work operation on a sewer blows up in tall flames (we do not see any injuries), and the pickup's hood is in flames and the lead vehicle flips and skids on its top (we hear that the driver went to the hospital and had his jaw wired shut).
 A short man shouts and berates a group of bikers (who wear leather, tattoos, and ear/nose piercings) that are parked illegally in an ADA zone; one biker picks up the shorter man as several other riders pull up and until a police officer approaches and breaks up the struggle. Two men argue over a propane grill until one man lights it and it explodes into flames, throwing the man through a hedge and we see that his shirt is charred (he looks unharmed, but he says his chest is blistering and he thinks he killed the neighbors' dog).
 Throughout the film, an angry police detective pursues criminals while berating his ride-along participant; in several scenes, the detective and criminals pull large handguns out and they often shoot without hitting anyone.
 A man grabs a little boy and several adults approach causing the man to run to a police car and get inside, saying that he wishes he had a gun for confidence and the police officer takes him to a shooting range, where the first man knocks over a rifle on a glass case; in the firing range, the first man shoots a handgun while shouting "Freeze!" and misses every shot while the officer hits the target every time; the first man tries a rifle while shouting but the recoil knocks him into a large trash bin and causes him to walk stiffly for a while; other men and women at the firing range wear protective ear-coverings and shoot several rounds of ammunition successfully (the shooting is loud).
 A disturbed man at a market throws produce and stall signs as a police trainee approaches; the man strips to his briefs, pours honey on his own chest and grabs the trainee, rolling over the floor with him, throwing produce at him and knocking him down, scratching, etc.; the trainee becomes sticky and dirty and a detective pulls a handgun and backup police arrive to arrest the man; a woman yells, "Police brutality."
 In a military-themed video game, a soldier is shot several times and his legs fall off without blood; a group of enemy soldiers surrounds him and shoots him many times on the ground while his mouth moves, but we hear nothing.
 A man in the back seat of a car hits his mouth hard on the front seat headrest during an abrupt stop, but does not bleed. A man startled by a flashlight screams, falls into a wall and falls to the floor unconscious; his girlfriend puts an ice pack on his head and we see no bruising (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
 Police officers, a detective and an injured man leave a hospital to stop criminals from killing the injured man's girlfriend when they receive a cell phone call from the criminals.
 We hear that a man received first-degree burns in a propane grill fire, not third-degree burns as he alleges. One man tells another man that he could get shot on a ride along and the second man becomes frightened. A man says that a big time criminal kills everyone who has ever seen his face. A security guard says to two arguing young men, "You're white, you're white; you don't fight!"
 Homeless men lie in dirty sleeping bags and blankets under a viaduct among debris and trash. A man spits on the ground below the frame (we see the spit and hear the spitting). A man spits tobacco juice onto another man's shoe and we see the residue hit the shoe. We cannot see the spit, but a man says a little boy spit on his lip while they were talking.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word and 1 not fully enunciated F-word derivative, 36 scatological terms, 30 anatomical terms, 29 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for African-Americans, exclamations (shut-up), name-calling (crazy, idiots, stupid, clown, mascot, weird, freak, snitch, punks, Little Man), stereotypical references to whites, African-Americans, Serbians, Afghans, biker gangs, older brothers, gamers, crooked cops, loners, 2 religious profanities (GD), 3 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Holy [scatological term deleted]).

SUBSTANCE USE - A man in a hospital ER receives a morphine drip but pulls the needle out of his arm (no blood but he stands, staggers, falls, slurs his speech and giggles before the drug wears off). Several men drink from bottles of beer in front of a tavern, a room full of wooden tables features bottles of liquor against one wall on a low shelf while other bottles of liquor and wine hang from the ceiling, and a security guard in a school yard tells a young man not to go drinking with older students because he will turn into a 17-year-old wino (and continues to say he'll not have a diploma, he'll go to the army, get his feet shot off, be unable to play basketball, and drink his life away without feet).

DISCUSSION TOPICS - The work of the police, guns, trust, courage, hazing, corruption, justice, relationships, love, friendship.

MESSAGE - Everyone needs someone to trust.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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