sluggish MBP with installs

so ive managed to download the new updates and everytime i hit restart it just sits there
now ive been told that it might take a WHILE for it to process the command
but this thing is taking longer then 45 minutes
this is a mid-2012 MBP and it cannot be doing this all the time
is there a sudo command line command that will force the app store update?
ive tried restarting but that has no effect....

this is just becoming an inconvenience for a portable device to take so long.... not right in my book

any help would be greatly appreciated
thanks

question???

Maverick or yosemite??

the reason i ask is yosemite does take some time to boot up and if it's taking 45 min i would look at the hard drive is going out