Stuber

Hollywood seems to only know two types of comedies: the gross, uses tons of 4-letter words, referencing sex and drugs or the cleaner, more formulaic, predictable type. Is there no happy medium? In several years past, the best comedies are usually produced by small independent companies. Here we are offered "Stuber", a fairly formulaic comedy with a police crime plot.

 

A quick-tempered cop Vic Manning (Dave Bautista) who's recovering from eye surgery, recruits a mild-mannered Uber driver Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) to help him catch a deadly, ruthless heroin dealer Oka Tedjo (Iko Uwais) who murdered his partner. The mismatched pair soon find themselves in for a wild day of stakeouts and shootouts as they pursue violent criminals through the seedy streets of Los Angeles. There are a couple of subplots involving Vic's daughter Nicole (Natalie Morales) and a friend of Stu's, Becca (Betty Gilpin) as well.

 

Others to round out the cast are Mira Sorvino as Angie McHenry, Karen Gillan as Sara Morris, Jimmy Tatro as Richie Sandusky, Steve Howey as Felix, Rene Moran as Amo Cortex and Amin Joseph as Leon.

 

This was fairly well directed by Michael Dowse ("Fubar" '02, "It's All Gone Pete Tong" '04, "Fubar: Balls to the Wall" '10, "Take Me Home Tonight" '11, "Goon" '11, "What If" '13) plus TV and a short. Even though the characters came across as real as they could be, considering this is a comedy, it was just a bit too stagy. He has a fair amount of seasoned work, so I'm not sure what happened. He definitely has a distinct flair, however this could have had a bit more polish. If you like his brand of directing, his "Coffee & Kareem" is in post-production for a 2020 release. It was executed well by Tripper Clancy ("Four Against the Bank" '16, "Hot Dog" '18) plus a short. Considering this writer's limited experience, this script wasn't badly written. Nothing Academy Award worthy, but it definitely conveyed many funny lines. It was basically formulaic and predicable and it did have a tendency to jump around a bit, but with these types of films, predictability kind of becomes the norm. The two small subplots involving Vic's daughter and Stu's friend/girlfriend, could have been intertwined a bit more thoroughly than they were. But hey, I've seen seasoned writers that didn't have  scripts as well thought out as this. The message here is underlying in that no matter how different people are, there can still be that connection that we're all looking for.

If formulaic, predictable films are what you like, this will be a film to look for. But, if you're looking for a bit more substance, you might want to Netflix this. It wasn't a wash--as mentioned prior, along with some drama, there were many funny scenes and the banter between Stu and Vic was solid.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                                   Rated: R                                      93mins.