Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up’ On Netflix, Reclaiming His Story Of 2019

This time last year, Kevin Hart’s publicist, manager and team of supporters were the ones begging him, please, Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up. Hart could’ve hosted the Academy Awards in 2019, if only he weren’t so, as the title of his 2019 Netflix stand-up special might suggest, so Irresponsible. So what happened? Did Hart learn about responsibility? Did he eff everything up? And what about his horrific car crash at the end of the summer? We sure hope we find out in this six-episode Netflix docuseries…

KEVIN HART: DON’T F**K THIS UP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a close-up of Hart’s desk at his company, HartBeat Productions, zoomed in on a photo of Hart with his wife, a pen holder that reads “Best. Boss. Ever.” and a figurine of himself talking into a microphone. We zoom out to find his publicist, Haley Hileman, delivering bad news to him in December 2018. His co-star in the film, The Upside, Bryan Cranston, has pulled out of upcoming press appearances alongside Hart. “They feel like he shouldn’t have to speak to what happened to you,” Hileman explains, as Hart nods and “uh-huh’s” before she adds: “You’re gonna have to go on an apology tour that week.”

Meanwhile, Hart’s manager, Dave Becky, who knows a thing or two clients and apology tours, having gone through it with his now-former client Louis C.K. just year earlier, looks anxiously at his phone but says nothing.
“The tour’s gonna be very simple,” Hart answers, laughing. “It’s not even I addressed it on Ellen, as I’ve addressed it several times.”

“No, no, you can’t do that,” Hileman insists.

The Gist: Hart has become the biggest comedy star around, touring arenas as a stand-up (which begat this year’s Irresponsible special), starring or co-starring in multiple movies (the past year has included The Upside, Night School, The Secret Life of Pets 2, and the new Jumanji sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level), and running a radio station on SiriusXM and webseries through his Laugh Out Loud digital brand. All that, plus a Nike endorsement deal (something no comedian has ever enjoyed). And the chance to host the Oscars this past year. How does he do it all? Where does he find the time?

This six-episode, three-hour docuseries explains it all through a lens that’s always controlled by Hart, for better or worse.

Our Take: The first episode shows us just how hard Hart hustles, following him from early-morning workouts with his personal trainer through late-night business meetings and pitches. He’s so busy he has to get his haircut in his office, and records voiceovers from his office. He’s so busy his wife, Eniko, worries he’s stretching himself too thin.

And then there’s the Oscars gig that wasn’t. We rehash all of that, going back to footage of him a decade ago in a previous special joking about his biggest fear then that his son might turn out gay, through montages of news coverage and online critics, and Dave Chappelle’s defense of Hart as “damn near perfect” from Chappelle’s own 2019 Netflix special.

We also go all the way back to Philadelphia and Hart’s childhood, growing up with a single mom, and how she made sure his teen years were heavily structured and ambitious to make sure he wouldn’t follow the same route as his older brother, who had joined a gang and sold drugs. We even, for reasons that aren’t explained, see the artist as a young Philly kid on Christmas morning wearing a Cowboys T-shirt.

We see how Hart is happily married with three kids, two from his first marriage, and how, when headlining the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on his 39th birthday in July 2018, he’s doing it all for his wife and kids and cementing their future so they never know the growing pains he faced.

Sex and Skin: None. Although the docuseries does cover the incident in which Hart was videotaped in 2017 cheating on his second wife.

Parting Shot: Hart leaves us dangling, noting that if he picked up his ambition and determination from his mother, then he also has some character traits that he got from his father. His absent, drug-addicted father.

Sleeper Star: Seems like Eniko, Hart’s second wife, showed up in his life at just the right moment for him personally, and professionally. If only he’d listen to her more. Or let her tell the rest of the story.

Most Pilot-y Line: Hart’s asked in an opening scene if he wishes he’d done anything differently, to which he replies: “OK, let’s just stop it right here. Because before people judge and go, ‘Kevin Hart’s a dickhead. He’s an asshole,’ I want you to understand there’s a lot that you don’t know. So let’s just stop here and then we’ll come back here to this moment.”

Our Call: SKIP IT. Hart turned 40 this July, but everything he’s done this year, from his Netflix special to this docuseries, has teased us for revelations that do not come. Fans thought he’d apologize in January for the Oscars. We thought he’d at least joke about in April during his stand-up special. Instead, he’s making us sort through three hours of documentary footage to wait for his big revelation. Except now, this December, what we’d really want is three hours of documentary footage about his near-fatal car accident and physical rehabbing and the revelations he’s made about his life over these past four months. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the next project to hear about that.

I called Hart’s 2011 concert film Laugh At My Pain one of the best comedy specials of the decade for good reason. It tells you everything you’d want to know about where he came from, why he hustles so hard. In fact, Hart uses footage from Laugh At My Pain liberally in the first two episodes of this series. You can just watch Laugh At My Pain. Then skip to the final episode of this series, see his brand-new muscle car peel out of his company’s parking lot, the car his friend would later crash with him inside, and wonder what Kevin Hart we’ll see come 2020.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Kevin Hart: Don't F**k This Up on Netflix