Every Tuesday, I review the newest Blu-ray releases and let you know whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping, along with a breakdown of the included extras. If you see something you like, click on the cover art to purchase the Blu-ray from Amazon, and be sure to share each week’s column on Facebook and Twitter with your friends.

WHAT: When millionaire stockbroker James King (Will Ferrell) is arrested for illegal trading and sentenced to ten years in a maximum security prison, he hires Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) – the owner of a car wash business whom James wrongly assumes is an ex-con – to prepare him for life behind bars, which proves more difficult than either one imagined.

WHY: Will Ferrell’s movie career isn’t what it used to be, so it was a really smart move to team up with Kevin Hart, the current king of the comedy box office, for his latest film. Though it’s not the most obvious pairing, they actually have some pretty good chemistry, even if the film doesn’t always know what to do with their partnership. Ferrell delivers one of his better comedic performances in quite some time, while Hart keeps his annoying outbursts to a minimum. The problem is that the jokes simply aren’t there. While the film is occasionally funny when Ferrell and Hart are allowed to let loose, the racial and homophobic humor doesn’t land quite as intended. The blatant stereotyping might be part of the message that “Get Hard” is trying to make, but director Etan Cohen doesn’t execute it particularly well. Additionally, the villains are absent for a majority of the movie, and the final act is nothing more than a hackneyed throwback to every buddy comedy from the ‘80s. “Get Hard” isn’t as bad as expected, but it’s still an incredibly uneven film that only fans of Ferrell and Hart will truly enjoy.

EXTRAS: In addition to some deleted scenes, alternate line readings and a gag reel, there are a number of short, mostly pointless featurettes on things like Will Ferrell’s wardrobe, John Mayer’s cameo and the white supremacist biker gang.

FINAL VERDICT: RENT

WHAT: Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are happily married, but while all of their middle-aged friends are busy raising children, they’ve fallen into a comfortable rut both personally and professionally. So when they start hanging out with a much younger couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried), Josh and Cornelia can’t help but be charmed by their carefree lifestyle, only to discover that the couple may have ulterior motives.

WHY: After being disappointed by 2010’s “Greenberg” and downright incensed by 2012’s “Frances Ha,” my expectations were pretty low going into director Noah Baumbach’s latest film, so it’s with great pleasure to be proven wrong. Not only is “While We’re Young” the director’s best work since “The Squid and the Whale,” but it doesn’t contain nearly the same level of nastiness as his previous movies, despite treading very similar ground thematically. While some of the commentary and digital/analog comparisons between the two couples feels a little too on the nose, there are plenty of great comedic moments that arise from them, at least until the final act, when Baumbach’s story gets overly serious and starts to go off the rails. Ben Stiller’s character isn’t the most likable guy, but he’s not the annoying neurotic he played in “Greenberg” either, and that goes a long way in keeping him on the audience’s side when everything goes to shit in the final 20 minutes. It’s some of the actor’s finest work in years, and he receives excellent support from Adam Driver and Naomi Watts as well. “While We’re Young” is far from perfect, but it’s a refreshingly lighthearted (although no less honest and thoughtful) side to Baumbach that he should really showcase more often.

EXTRAS: There are six behind-the-scenes featurettes on the cast, director Noah Baumbach, working with Charles Grodin, the Ayahuasca ceremony sequence and more.

FINAL VERDICT: RENT

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Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Jasmine Trinca, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone

Pierre Morel

Lightning doesn’t strike twice, as proven by director Pierre Morel’s recent output. Since his 2008 smash hit, “Taken,” Morel has been unsuccessful in trying to recapture the magic of his wildly popular B-movie. Though the French filmmaker helped turn Liam Neeson into an action star, he’s failed to do the same for John Travolta and Sean Penn. The latter stars in the director’s newest picture, “The Gunman,” an incredibly middle-of-the-road thriller that’s so light on action that the first 45 minutes doesn’t contain a single set piece.

“The Gunman” is a surprisingly small-scale movie, where most of the action takes place in contained locations. This kind of less-is-more approach is always welcomed, but it doesn’t work in the film’s favor, since none of the characters can hold your attention. This self-serious thriller tries to be more than what it really is. In the vein of “Taken,” the drama is redundant, thin and clunky, but unlike that movie, the emotional conflict doesn’t play second fiddle to the action. This a character-driven film, taking way too much time to tell an all-too-familiar story.

Jim Terrier (Penn) is a mercenary with a dark past, but he’s finally found happiness in the Congo. When we meet the sniper, he’s in a loving relationship with Annie (Jasmine Trinca), but that all ends when Terrier and his team kill the country’s minister of mining. Terrier, without telling Annie, has to go on the run. Years later, he returns to the Congo to do some good working for the NGO, but of course, he’s pulled back into the game after some men try to kill him.

Terrier suffers from headaches and memory loss, so fighting to stay alive isn’t going to be easy. Right from the start of the film, we’re served a trite conflict. A sick operative? We recently saw that character in “3 Days to Kill” and “Dying of the Light,” both of which are fairly mediocre movies that still managed to put that idea to better use. Penn is fine in the role, but the material fails him, which is ironic considering he co-wrote the script. The actor is a great writer and director, and he actually covered a similar journey – a man with a dark past getting in the way of him starting over – in his incredible 2001 film, “The Pledge.”

It’s the supporting actors that help bring some flickers of life to “The Gunman.” At one point, Idris Elba shows up in a glorified cameo playing a character named Jackie Barnes. Who wouldn’t want to see a franchise starring Elba as a mysterious Interpol agent? He’s in “The Gunman” for five minutes, and he makes every second count. Elba has some fairly on-the-nose dialogue to deliver, but an actor of his caliber can make every cheesy line sizzle. Strangely, the same cannot be said for Javier Bardem, playing an old colleague of Terrier and Annie’s new husband, who’s an early candidate for a Razzie nomination. His performance goes so big that his character leaves reality far too quickly. Bardem’s scenery chewing never fits this overly dour film.

If “The Gunman” was 20 minutes shorter and more action-oriented, it could have been a blast. Morel knows how to shoot action. He never shows us anything new, but the action is often impressive – quick and brutal, but never jarring. Morel knows how to put together an exciting set piece, but drama is not his forte. There’s nothing emotional about Terrier’s romance or his attempt to start over. Almost everything about “The Gunman” is by-the-numbers, which is fine, but it doesn’t even tell a familiar story particularly well.

Now that awards season is well and truly over, it’s time to turn our attention to the new movies hitting theaters this month, although from the look of things, there’s not much to get excited about. With the exception of Neill Blomkamp’s latest sci-fi treat, there isn’t a single March release that I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing, and while there’s always the possibility that one or more of these films will surprise, I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet.

Who: Sharlto Copley, Hugh Jackman, Dev Patel and Sigourney Weaver
What: When a police droid named Chappie is stolen and given new programming, he becomes he first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself.
When: March 6th
Why: Neill Blomkamp’s “Elysium” was a disappointment on a number of levels, so it’s nice to see the director hasn’t wasted any time erasing the memory of that movie with a new sci-fi project that appears to have more in common (both tonally and thematically) with “District 9,” the film that put him on the map. The decision to reteam with Sharlto Copley – who was hands-down the best thing about Blomkamp’s previous efforts – was a no-brainer, but if there’s anything that could possibly upstage him this time around, it’s Hugh Jackman (playing against type as the film’s villain) and his glorious mullet. That, or the killer visual effects.

Who: Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco, Tom Wilkinson, James Marsden and Sienna Miller
What: A hard-working small business owner and his two associates travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives.
When: March 6th
Why: It’s hard to believe that Hollywood is still betting on Vince Vaughn, because he’s not the comedy star he once was. He hasn’t had anything resembling a hit in years, and it’s been just as long since his last good film, which isn’t a coincidence. Though Vaughn’s upcoming stint on “True Detective” could prove to be the launch pad for his comeback, audiences will first have to suffer through this barrage of low-brow frat humor whose biggest crime isn’t how dreadfully unfunny it looks, but that it managed to convince a classy actor like Tom Wilkinson to submit himself to such stupidity. Does he owe back taxes or something?

Who: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman and Genesis Rodriguez
What: An aging hitman is forced to take on his brutal former boss in order to protect his estranged son and his family.
When: March 13th
Why: It’s great that Liam Neeson has been able to revitalize his career by playing a bunch of senior citizen badasses with a particular set of skills, but even he must realize that it’s beginning to veer towards parody. Not only does “Run All Night” reunite the actor with director Jaume Collete-Serra, whose previous collaborations include the generic action thrillers “Unknown” and “Non-Stop,” but with some basic rewrites, it could easily be the next installment in the “Taken” franchise. Neeson’s latest shoot-‘em-up does boast a better-than-usual cast with veterans like Ed Harris and Vincent D’Onofrio, but sadly, it looks like just more of the same.