‘Stuber’ Review

Dude’s name is Stu and he drives an Uber (hence Stuber) as his second job and runs into a detective, Vic, who is emotionally broken as well as angry. Congratulations, you’ve won a brand new MOVIE! And not just any kind of movie but a buddy cop comedy that is rater R so you’ll get plenty of blood too. Since Stu is played by the comedically talented Kumail Nanjiani while Vic is portrayed by the ever evolving Dave Bautista, you’d expect that there would be a lot more effort driving it to be memorable. That isn’t the case though as the film barely gets the engine going when other comedies are already reaching their top speed and therefore struggles to reach its destination.

Led by the two leads who are genuinely giving their best effort in every single scene, the whole cast couldn’t be more wasted here. Actors like Natalie Morales (as Vic’s daughter Nicole), Jimmy Tatro (Stu’s boss Richie) and Rene Moran (Amo Cortez) are following the playbook of action comedies to a T, playing the stereotypical characters just the right way. Nanjiani and Bautista display incredible chemistry at times so at the end you can’t help but feel like the writer and director Michael Dowse are pulling a prank on them. Furthermore, the uninspired stunt choreography feels way too cheesy and poorly planned to make the action sequences cover up for the material in hand.

And you really can’t underline how majorly disappointing Stuber’s script actually is. Most of the jokes offered are really the equivalent of pointing at something and making a lazy pop culture reference of it, the problem really being that it’s the only kind of joke available here as it’s gets recycled time and time again. Character beats are equally bland: predictable unveiling of the baddie, dad-daughter issues that get resolved with zero effort and Stu’s friend-zone situation with Becca (Betty Gilpin) which could set up decade’s worst rom-com. The visual storytelling also doesn’t make those situations any better since fight scenes are shot with earthquake-y shakiness (the first 10 minutes is dreadful) while all of the lighting looks borderline flat.

Smileys: Whole cast’s performances

Frowneys: Screenplay, humour, cinematography, stunt choreography

Stuber marketing team should be offering candy bars and drinks for every viewer if they want a better driver rating. Work for the five stars, you know.

1.5/5