Keanu

There are comedies and there are comedies. They come in all different packages, whether it be powder dry, whacky, physical, action or inane or silly comedies. If I would have to label "Keanu" in any of these categories, I would have to call it an action comedy. The action part of it only improved it, otherwise it probably would've fallen into the inane or silly category, not that there wasn't some silliness in it.

Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) and Rell (Jordan Peele) are two cousins who live in the city but are far from streetwise. Rell becomes attached to an adorable kitten which he calls Keanu, while dealing with a painful breakup. But when he returns home one night with Clarence, he is devastated to learn that his house had been burglarized and his feline friend was missing. In order to find and bring back Keanu, the nerdy duo must plot a plan to impersonate ruthless killers so as to infiltrate a violent street gang headed up by Cheddar (Method Man) and includes Hi-C (Tiffany Hadish), Trunk (Darrell Britt-Gibson), Bud (Jason Mitchell) and Stitches (Jamar Malachi Neighbors). Clarence and Rell eventually get in way over their heads the harder they try to fit into the gang as 'one of them', so retrieving Keanu becomes more and more impossible.

Others to round out the cast are Luis Guzman as Bacon, Will Forte as Hulka, Nia Long as Hannah, Clarence's wife and Rob Huebel as Spencer, a friend of Hannah's.

This was adequately directed by Peter Atencio ("The Rig" '10) plus a good deal of TV and shorts. I believe there is potential in this filmmaker given him more work--he's certainly been cutting his directing chops on enough TV. He's still a bit jerky and too stagy, but as the old adage goes, "practice makes perfect". It was written by Jordan Peele and Alex Rubens. After seeing too many comedies where the lead actor also is involved with the writing, I'm concluding that they should really stick to acting and let the writers do their job. Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and others should all act in their films and not write. This film as with other comedies written by actors are simply not funny. The premise may be intriguing, but the execution is sloppy, contrived, depending on more 4-letter words, sexual innuendos, and frat falls. There were some scenes in this that looked like the actors were wondering what to say next. Jordan Peele need's to clearly stick to acting. Both he and Keegan-Michael Key were funny and had great chemistry, but with a better contrived script, these two would've come across even funnier.

If one is looking for an extremely funny script, keep looking, because this isn't the one that will fit the bill. It has funny moments, but the key word here is moment. The one that actually steals the show is Keanu. He is so adorable just plain cute to look at.

Out of 4 Stars: 1.5                                    Rated: R                                  98mins.