Kevin Hart: Zero F**ks Given review – fighting talk with a glass jaw

‘It’s my fucking household, I’m not holding back!” That’s the conceit of Kevin Hart’s latest special, filmed chez Hart in September, to a masked audience. It promises a combative response to the “cancel culture” that led Hart to step down as an Oscars host after a homophobia row. But no such response materialises, nor does Hart convince as a man who – see the show’s title – has Zero F**ks to give.

He seems bruised, for one, by the brickbats. His reason for staying housebound is that “there’s people out there [and] … cat’s out of the bag, I don’t like people any more.” That’s because he gets no peace in public, never sure he’s not being recorded, filmed or set up. It’s a sad picture, although he uses a strikingly funny analogy – comparing the Insta generation to 1980s policing – to paint it.

Home being where this Hart is, he has little to share but tales of domesticity, about his wife, his kids – and, alas, his ego. One routine complains that his children’s school disrespects his level of fame. Another relates how he gets to queue-jump at amusement parks – a privilege he tells his kids he has entirely earned. You can either respect his honesty or, as I did, regret his inflated self-regard.

It’s certainly out of whack with the comedy on show. OK, so Hart can sell a story: his boxing anecdote builds tension skilfully towards its lame punchline. But most of the material has a glass jaw. He marvels at the Covid-era run on loo roll: “Does Covid make you shit?!” His daughter has successive crushes on boys, so he calls her a “ho”. He ridicules his wife for worrying he might be out getting his “dick sucked” (“the shit I deal with is unreal!”).

None of this approaches a Dave Chappelle-style baiting of his persecutors. And, while it’s a relaxed set, it’s not as nonchalant as the title suggests: this is a man who gets anxious at how his penis looks in cycling shorts. If this is Hart not holding back – well, perhaps he just doesn’t have much to say?