Die Hart is a 2022 short-form action comedy series created by Derick Kolstad (John Wick) and directed by Eric Appel (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story). Kevin Hart stars as a fictionalized version of himself alongside Nathalie Emmanuel, Josh Hartnett, Jean Reno, and John Travolta. The series premiered on the streaming app Quibi on July 20, 2020.
Having had his fill of playing the comedic sidekick, Hart seeks to make a pivot in his career by becoming the action movie hero. To that end, he enrolls in a boot camp. Just one problem. His trainer (Travolta) is a bit… intense.
While it was initially renewed, the show’s second season plans were stymied by the discontinuation of Quibi. In 2021, however, the Roku Channel picked up and currently streams the series. As of January 2023
, Prime Video has announced plans to re-edit the minisodes into a single film, Die Hart: The Movie, which was released on February 24, 2023. Roku currently remains attached to produce the second season, Die Hart 2: Die Harter, which will add cast members Ben Schwartz, Paula Pell, and John Cena and follows Kevin as he tries to continue his journey into action stardom, only to end up in over his head yet again.
Previews: Trailer
Die Hart includes the following examples:
- Absurd Phobia: In the first episode, a talk show host comments that Kevin has a fear of woodland animals. Later in that episode, Kevin arrives at Wilcox’s school only to be frightened by a squirrel.
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: During the events of season two, Kevin becomes significantly more arrogant and reckless following his successes in the first season, leading him into new trouble.
- Adam Westing: Kevin plays himself as an insecure and somewhat arrogant washed-up actor trying to break out of his typecast rut. Josh Hartnett goes a step further by portraying himself as a total Jerkass who participates in a scheme to trick Kevin into a "Truman Show" Plot.
- Ambiguous Ending: Season two. Did Doug manage to swap places with Kevin and get him sent to prison in his place, or is Doug in prison where he belongs and just trying to pretend to be Kevin to try and get out?
- Androcles' Lion: Played for Laughs with the squirrel, which seemingly attacks the Cartel leader to defend Kevin, but is actually just a trained animal actor.
- As Himself: Hart plays a fictionalized version of himself, trying to be seen as more than Dwayne Johnson’s comedic sidekick.
- Berserk Button: Wilcox goes completely insane with anger if Kevin and Jordan even think about going into his office. Because it's full of proof that they're being secretly filmed.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Kevin feels typecast in this role and direly wants to break out of it. Andre ends up playing this role to Kevin.
- Call-Back: Kevin's car is pushed into a pit to keep him from leaving in the first season. In the second season, after discovering his car is about the only thing that hasn't been tampered with, mutters that at least his car didn't get destroyed again.
- Crazy Survivalist: Mr. 206, a former stuntman who now lives in seclusion in the woods. When he isn't helping his former mentee Doug on revenge schemes.
- Deconstructive Parody: Of action movies, the concept of actors training for their roles, Typecasting, and film production in general.
- Disney Villain Death: Subverted. Kevin throws the Cartel boss into a pit… and onto a safety trampoline.
- Dr. Feelgood: After Kevin is shot, Jordan tries to get prescriptions and first aid to treat his wound, only for the pharmacist to mistakenly think she's a junkie… and start offering to hook her up with the good shit.
- Drugs Are Bad: Wilcox is an avid hard drug user, which is implied to be part of why he's such a nutjob. Prior to the events of the series, he accidentally killed the brother of his drug supplier while high, causing the Cartel to come hunting for revenge towards the end of season one… or rather, that's the story he acts out.
- Eccentric Mentor: Wilcox is an intense, strict, easily distracted teacher of action stars. That's what he pretends to be at least.
- Enforced Method Acting: Taken to a deranged extreme. The entire acting school and everything that happens there is all staged. All of it. It's all just a film set with scenes staged without Kevin's knowledge to capture an "authentic" performance out of him.
- Hypocritical Humor: Wilcox chastises Kevin harshly for not following gun safety because Kevin tried to grab the gun by the barrel, dismissing that he broke safety rules first by handing Kevin the gun barrel-first (violating the cardinal rule of never pointing a gun at a person you don't attend to shoot) and, even more importantly, gave an untrained individual a firearm while refusing to confirm whether or not it's safe. And then he violates the rules even worse when he and Josh Hartnett fire blank-loaded guns in Kevin's direction as a joke and nearly shoot him when it turns out there was one live bullet in a clip of blanks, which is especially against safety rules.
- I'm Going to Hell for This: Wilcox declares he's going to Hell for killing Rodrigo in a drug-induced fit and stealing his necklace, bringing the Cartel down on his school. Kevin pretty concurs.
- Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Kevin and Doug, his stunt double, look identical to one another, except Doug has really bad teeth. Which allows Doug to impersonate him.
- Inverted Trope: The second season is an inversion of the first season. In the first, Kevin gets manipulated into taking part in a movie that he thinks is dangerous situation. In the second, Kevin gets manipulated into walking into a real dangerous situation that he thinks is just a movie.
- Never My Fault: Kevin accidentally stabs Jordan in the arm after Wilcox lies that the knife they're using in a fight exercise is a retractable prop knife. After it happens, Wilcox immediately freaks out and starts reprimanding Kevin for what he did as if it's his fault. It really was a fake knife and Jordan's injury was just special effects. The whole thing is staged.
- No OSHA Compliance: The big thing that clues Kevin in that something is weird about Wilcox's school is how OSHA noncompliant it is, with things like stunt wires that break under human weight, "prop" knives that actually cut, real fire but no flame protection or sprinklers, and live bullets haphazardly placed in blank clips. In truth, everything is perfectly OSHA compliant, because all the danger is staged.
- No Sex Allowed: Wilcox strictly prohibits sex in his school. Kevin is baffled he even bothers to bring it up. It's implied the reason for it is because Kevin being filmed having sex without his consent would render the footage legally unusable, not to mention the only people around for him to have sex with are lying to him constantly and thus would technically be committing rape by deception.
- No Stunt Double: In season two, Kevin has become confident enough in his action skills that he fires his stunt double, Doug. This comes back to bite him.
- Prima Donna Director: Claude Van De Velde, the pretentious European director who demands Kevin go to Wilcox's action star school before casting him in his latest movie. And is actually just luring Kevin and Jordan into unknowingly acting out the scenes for his newest movie, secretly filming them so he can get "authentic" performances.
- Reckless Gun Usage: The point where Kevin becomes fully disillusioned with the school and starts trying to leave is when Wilcox gives the team real guns for an exercise but refuses to answer whether they are loaded with blanks or live ammunition. Shortly after, Wilcox and Hartnett fire off the guns in Kevin's direction as a joke and nearly shoot him because there was one live bullet in a clip full of blanks, which is a massive no-no for rather obvious reasons.
- Rescue Romance: Kevin wishes he and Jordan were developing this, but it's anything but.
- Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Kevin isn't so much rude as blunt, straightforward, and prone to not minding others' feelings. Andre, conversely, is a total Nice Guy.
- Shout-Out:
- The show’s title is a play on Die Hard, and the title cards for season one use the same red bold font famously associated with that series. Conversely, season two's title font is more akin to the font used for Fast & Furious.
- Upon discovering that his car was destroyed, Kevin exclaims "they fucking killed my car!".
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Wilcox puts Kevin through some very realistic action Star scenarios. On his first day, Kevin is charged with saving a civilian from a burning building. With real fire. It only escalates from there.
- Stereotype Flip: Kevin's stunt double, Doug, is a black man who also acts and talks like your average, stereotypical white redneck.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Every time Kevin and Jordan get into a fight, they learn pretty quick that actual fights aren't nearly as choreographed and fancy as movies make it look and mostly consist of lots of tumbling about and wildly thrown hits.
- Andre gets thrown over a balcony and into a glass table. He stands up seemingly uninjured… and then notices that he's got a broken table leg jutting out of his side.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Twisted around comedically. Jordan throws a knife at Mr. 206 to distract him as he's about to kill Kevin… and instead actually stabs him in the head, killing him.
- "Truman Show" Plot: It is eventually revealed that Kevin is secretly being filmed by Wilcox and Van De Velde for the latter’s movie.
- Typecasting: In universe, Kevin is fed up with being pigeon-holed into comedy sidekick parts.
- Vanity Project: Season two involves Kevin trying to get a movie he personally wrote to further show off his acting skills made, only to face difficulties shopping it around for a producer.
- Women Are Wiser: Subverted and deconstructed hard. Jordan seems like your usual Only Sane Woman when she first shows up, but quickly proves to be so monomaniacally determined to become an action star that she's not willing to near-completely ignore the terrifyingly unsafe conditions at Wilcox's school. Which is itself a lie to conceal that she's in on the whole scheme to film Kevin without his knowledge. Even her fighting skills are all fake, as the Cartel are just yet more actors; when put in an actual fight in season two, she gets her ass kicked just as bad as Kevin.
