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Brick Wall Comedy
Brick Wall Comedy
Promotional art for Zero F**ks Given
Cover image credit: via TMDB

Zero F**ks Given

Kevin Hart

Netflix · 2020 · 69 min

An arena comedian scales down to his own living room.

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Kevin Hart trades the booming echo of a sports arena for the confines of his own living room, trying to make a massive, lucrative comedy career feel like a casual hangout. To do that, he serves brick oven pizza to a small, masked audience and leans into the frustrations of being trapped at home with a family he clearly loves but is thoroughly sick of. His best moments are when he drops the polished, high-energy showmanship to complain about the small stuff: his daughter’s dating life, the absolute pointlessness of male group chats, and why he thinks private schools are raising soft children.\n\nFilmed in September 2020 at his home in Los Angeles and released on Netflix that November, the set catches Hart during a weirdly transitional period in his career. He had recently survived a severe car accident, faced a wave of public scrutiny over past controversies, and quietly contracted COVID-19. He admits here that he kept his diagnosis a secret because he caught it around the same time as Tom Hanks and knew he couldn’t compete with that level of media coverage.\n\nThe change in scale was a necessity of the pandemic, but it also functioned as a branding pivot. Instead of a tiny man dwarfed by giant LED screens, viewers get a wealthy guy in a room larger than most actual comedy clubs, riffing on sex over forty and his kids’ transition from public to private schooling.\n\nDespite some criticism that the material was standard fare for Hart, the home-theater experiment worked commercially. Netflix reported that over 21 million households streamed the special in its first month, cementing his status as one of the few comics who can pull arena-sized numbers from a couch.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Contracting COVID-19 during the pandemic

    Hart recounts dealing with lockdown, mask buying, toilet paper hoarding, and choosing not to publicly reveal his COVID diagnosis because Tom Hanks had already stolen the thunder.

  2. All-male group chats of friends over 40

    A lengthy, colorful breakdown describing how an all-male group chat of friends in their 40s is just random, unfocused conversation.

  3. Apologizing to the plant-based community

    Addressing having to issue a formal public apology after being caught on video eating a Big Mac.

  4. Navigating his teenage daughter's dating life

    Sharing personal stories and anxieties about his teenage daughter beginning to date.

How it plays

Tone
Personal, raunchy, irreverent, and combative.
On stage
Intimate, personal storyteller with an irreverent, raunchy edge who frequently cracks up at his own material.
Pace
Conversational, intimate, and raw; unrefined tempo suited for a cozy living-room comedy club setup rather than an arena.
About
COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown life, male group chats, sex after 40, parenting and family life, celebrity, fame, and cancel culture

What the critics said

Mixed: while praised for its intimate quarantine concept and viewership success, critics noted the material felt unrefined and low on big laughs, with The Guardian arguing its defiant premise felt toothless, while Film Companion criticized its underdeveloped jokes.

In the room: Intimate, cozy, socially distanced, and masked gathering of fewer than 50 people inside Hart's home.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: en.wikipedia.org, themoviedb.org, deadline.com, theguardian.com, vulture.com, filmcompanion.in, imdb.com.

Backstory

Filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic inside his home to a socially distanced, masked audience of under 50 people, following his controversial stepping down from hosting the Oscars and after secretly contracting COVID-19 himself.

Details

Released
Taped
Living room of his home, Los Angeles
Runtime
69 min
Where
Netflix
Director
Leslie Small
Honors
Netflix's No. 1 comedy special in 2020
Topics
Before
Irresponsible (2019)
After
Reality Check (2023)

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