Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
This is straight-up commercial comedy, low-keyed division, and while it can't hold a candle to recent, dark-comic Israeli achievements such as Joseph Cedar's "Footnote," the actors more than save it.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The drama falls somewhere on the spectrum between Michael Haneke's devastating Amour and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies, but the result is a film that's frank about death without leaving you cold.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
I can't recall any film ever making me laugh and cry in complete comic and dramatic balance like "The Farewell Party."

Name : Vadim Rizov / Alias : AV Club
The Farewell Party leaves no doubt as to where it stands on the right to die with dignity when facing terminal illness, but it's so clumsily made that it serves only to exasperate.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
It never lapses into mawkishness, but remains clear-eyed and compassionate. It's not coldly clinical; instead, the characters are treated with grace and respect.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
The themes are life and death, but the tone stays breezy.

Name : Abby Garnett / Alias : Village Voice
The Farewell Party makes drama out of right-to-die politics and asserts that just about everyone who makes it past a certain age will have to contend with the issue in one way or another.

Name : Mark Matousek / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
How refreshing for a film to stare death in the face and find compassion reflected in its gaze.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
A bittersweet, wryly comic, keenly observed look at senescence from Israeli directors Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The gags in the movie's first half are so unapologetically mordant that I was disappointed to see them dwindle to nothing in the second, as so often happens in stories like this one.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A gentle but pointed work that walks a particular line to create a specific tone, a consistently warm and comic film about an unmistakably serious subject.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
For all its sensitivity to the subject, "The Farewell Party" makes a number of tonal missteps .

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
It's taking a strong stand on the morality of mercy killing, no doubt, but it also acknowledges the precious glory of life. It's a rare film that can smile while studying suffering.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
For all its talk of death, The Farewell Party, featuring a terrific ensemble cast, is a story about life. Always honest, graceful and funny it explores with deep compassion its characters familial and romantic relationships.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
From its juvenile double entendre title to its fascination with prison rape and homophobic humor, "Get Hard" practically announces itself as an offensive, tired and unimaginative comedy in nearly every scene.

Name : John DeFore / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
It already seems more dated than Trading Places - not to mention less savvy about all the subjects it pretends to be addressing while it tries to make us laugh.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Anal rape jokes and racial stereotypes dominate this third-rate comedy.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Get Hard is not only a bad movie but a profoundly wasted opportunity.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Get Hard is one limp noodle.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Since anyone who has seen the trailer has already seen many of the film's best moments, making it through to the end does feel like something of a life sentence.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
The highest praise I can give "Get Hard" is that it is not quite as awful as it could have been.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Get Hard is hard to sit through and hardly funny.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Only the humorless will frown at Ferrell's easy way with white-guy entitlement. "I'm going to be attending San Quentin," the Harvard grad sniffs, almost as a point of pride; later, after tasting thug life, he calls it an "ambrosia of primal sensations."

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Will you laugh? Absolutely. Could this have been a better film? Definitely.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It feels like a bunch of off-color jokes the filmmakers have been trying to tell for years, and they've crammed them all into one film - with tiresome results.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
A confused and contradictory mess.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
Before the movie has even really begun, it's already fudging its own premise and undermining its satire.

Name : Christopher Orr / Alias : The Atlantic
Ferrell has stuck to the formulaic farce that made him a star, even as his roles have been shifting from antic instigator to bewildered straight man.

Name : Liam Lacey / Alias : Globe and Mail
Not entirely unfunny.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
Ideally, this would be Blazing Saddles for folks who chug kombucha. Yet it's harder to satirize race today than it was 40 years ago - more sensitive times impose gentler jokes.

Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
A movie that refuses to recognize when it's going too far, with its wince-eliciting jokes about jailhouse rape in particular.

Name : Molly Eichel / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
The germ of an interesting idea in Get Hard is completely overshadowed by the onslaught of jokes meant to be boundary-pushing and edgy.

Name : Andrew Lapin / Alias : NPR
It's still ultimately a disposable work, but at least while it's going, it hits hard.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
The movie seeks to make you laugh while also risking offense by going too far. It succeeds on both counts.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Funny bits come along every now and then, and the co-stars work desperately hard for their salaries. But the spectacle is depressing for what it says of mainstream studio standards.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
This is a horrible idea for a movie. It is, however, a decent idea for an extended sketch, and that's how the first two-thirds of the movie plays.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Hart and Ferrell may not be Pryor and Wilder, but they score several laughs in this slim comedy.

Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
It's tricky territory to tread, and Get Hard doesn't always get it right, but in a nation where racial and economic divides are growing issues, it deserves credit for trying.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
With Ferrell and Hart involved, it's probably impossible for anyone to completely resist their baser instincts to be amused by the patently offensive. Though it's hard not to wish more moviegoers would.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
A lazy attempt to drag out a Funny or Die-style skit to feature length by continuously recycling about eight minutes worth of gags.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
Get Hard turns out to be a far cry from something like Trading Places or even the clever first half of the class-insurrection comedy of Tower Heist.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
I laughed when Ferrell smashed a bottle of beer on the sidewalk, just to show he's tough, but if that's a movie's standout bit, that movie's no standout.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Subtly, not in a way anyone would notice without looking for it, the movie switches back and forth, giving each comedian a chance to be the funny one and the other to lend support.

Name : Kevin C. Johnson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The film's numbing lack of intelligence, exhibited from the start, makes "Get Hard" tough to watch, even by Hart/Ferrell standards.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
It trucks in stereotypes (black, white, Latino, female - the list is long) and plays clumsily with sexuality. Still, the movie's greatest and altogether familiar sin is that it's stupid.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Dumb, juvenile comedy has its place when it's funny. Unfortunately, too often in Get Hard, it's not.

Name : Richard Corliss / Alias : TIME Magazine
Laughter trumps political fairness; and Get Hard made me laugh at, and with, situations I hadn't thought could tickle me. The movie has a warm heart beating under its seemingly scabrous shell.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
The dubious merit of tiresome "don't drop the soap" jokes aside, "Get Hard" sometimes veers perilously close to committing the very sins it aspires to criticize.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
"Get Hard" isn't edgy enough to be offensive or witty enough to be challenging. It's just dumb.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
If you're disturbed by white-collar crime, but not quite as disturbed as you are by gay sex, then congratulations: You might possess just the right combo of social conscience and unexamined homophobia needed to fully enjoy Get Hard.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
There's a daring comedy somewhere inside writer Etan Cohen's directorial debut, which simultaneously trivializes and solemnizes the prospect of prison rape.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Get Hard" is worth a look for fans of Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart. And the two do work well together. But anyone with a low tolerance for politically incorrect stereotyping and lowbrow humor should sit this one out.