I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed this film, which is just the same amount of buddy-cop content as its title is a quirky, ridiculous pun. Stuber is a fairly generic yet fun movie about a cop chasing after an infamous drug lord who gets caught up in the modern culture of ridesharing. Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani star in this film alongside Karen Gillan and Natalie Morales, all who give decent performances. While Nanjiani is the unsurprisingly comedic standout, I loved the chemistry between this entire cast and what they brought to this unfortunately overplayed genre.
Vic (Dave Bautista) is a Los Angeles cop who is trying to track down a notorious drug lord with the help of his partner Morris (Karen Gillan). Unaware of the current state of technology, Vic's daughter Nicole (Natalie Morales) downloads Uber on his phone and he ends up getting a driver named Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) stuck in the middle of a heated criminal case. The chemistry between these two leads is undeniable and make for some of the most hilarious scenes throughout this entire film. Bautista and Nanjiani provide some of the stalest performances ever, but in a very humorous way. Bautista's stale is a hardass exterior that is trying to prevent anyone from knowing his true feelings while Nanjiani's stale is that of very dry humor and a lack of passion for anything in his life. The contrast between these two paved the way for a hilarious relationship that I truly feel only these two actors could ever pull off. The use of technology and modern jargon surprisingly did not hold this movie's tone back at all, which is one of the main aspects I was worried about. Gillan and Morales were also great in this film but were both only given limited screentime and I honestly feel like could have been put to much more use. Thankfully, the way that the two leads interacted and furthered the story made that much more interesting. And I also loved the fact that our two main stars are people of color. Even though that is fairly commonplace in today's era of film, it was refreshing to see these two not-quite-household-name artists work together in this genre of film.
Michael Dowse's direction was quite generic yet effective. Dowse is able to tell this story, written by Tripper Clancy, very well and it thankfully did not outstay its welcome. My main issues with this film include Clancy's script and the overall mediocrity of the plot. Taking a simple part of our culture and turning it into a feature-length film seems to be a bit of a trend in these star-studded yet forgettable kinds of comedies. Having an Uber driver become part of an intense police investigation is a fun way to get the different personalities of the characters involved, but I thought that there were far too many plot points that were way too convenient or were just simply nonsensical. These unpredictable but convenient story elements such as the sriracha factory and the Lasik surgery seem to be a staple of this kind of genre and they definitely did not work in favor of these characters. These irregular plotlines are due to Clancy's lackluster script and even though his comedy works reasonably well, the whole film is honestly held up by the actors and actresses involved. The music choice throughout this film was not quite on tempo either. There were multiple pop song and strange, ambient music choices that were placed in the most peculiar parts of this story. There is one full-circle joke involving a Styx song that I found amusing, but the rest of the film seemed to be scored by someone with absolutely no experience. All of these elements help the written humor of this movie stand out, but in regards to plot, Stuber contains every predictable relationship quirk and classic plot twist of the buddy-cop genre.
Stuber is a simple film that is a perfect summer time-waster. Once it comes out later this July, I'm certain that audiences with mediocre expectations will find it incredibly entertaining, as did I. I would recommend this movie for anyone who happens to be a fan of these artists or even just want an idiosyncratic time at the movies to escape the heat.
My Rating: ★★★
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