THESE are golden times for stand-up comedian Kevin Hart. His most recent tour, Laugh At My Pain, and the TV special Let Me Explain were hugely popular and a 30-minute pilot television based around Hart’s high-energy act is in production.

He also currently has two films raking in the dollars at the American box office, including this mismatched buddy-comedy. It’s difficult to see what the fuss is about. Neither as hilarious as it should be, nor as thrilling as it could be, Ride Along shifts lazily through the gears as its protagonists clash during a 24-hour police patrol of Atlanta and unwittingly stumble into a far bigger case.

The film has echoes of last summer’s riotous romp, The Heat, starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, albeit without the belly laughs or winning screen chemistry between the leads.

The script boasts a couple of arresting one-liners and some slick action set pieces, but we’ve screeched down these mean streets countless times before.

School security guard Ben Barber (Kevin Hart) is a video-game junkie, who has been romancing his girlfriend Angela (Tika Sumpter) for two years.

Her brother James (Ice Cube) is a detective in the Atlanta Police Department, who thinks Ben is unworthy of Angela’s affections.

In order to prove himself, Ben applies to join the police academy and, against the odds, is accepted. James is unimpressed and concocts a cunning plan to get Ben out of his life forever: he invites the unsuspecting rookie on patrol of the city with the intention of humiliating him.

The plan works a treat, until Ben’s nerdy videogame knowledge uncovers a clue that could lead to the most notorious criminal in Atlanta.

Ride Along allows Hart to riff and wise-crack while Ice Cube rolls his eyes and gets on with the serious business of solving the case. Both actors possess a certain rough charm, despite the weak material.