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STUBER
Starring: Kumail Nanjiani, Dave Bautista, Iko Uwais
Director: Michael Dowse
Genre: Comedy, action
Rating: R
RUNTIME: 93 Mins
Every few years, the quintessential buddy comedy is given a shiny new body, but the bones remain the same – one funny guy, one straight-edged serious guy, an unbelievable amount of disaster and a love interest or two for extra horsepower.
Stuber, starring Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista, sticks true to this formula yet Kumail’s timing, a decently funny script and the chemistry between the two just makes it work.
The movie, directed by Canadian Michael Dowse, has a straightforward plot and setting. Uber driver Stu, played by Kumail, who is struggling with two jobs and unrequited love, picks up on-the-brink police officer Vic, who has just gone through laser eye surgery making him temporarily almost-blind, and becomes part of his ridiculous revenge operation. Vic and Stu bond over male feature dancers, bullet-removal vet visits and the Uber driver’s ubiquitous pursuit of a five-star rating. Stu’s expeditions through the friend zone and Vic’s work-family balance round off the story as intriguing yet mostly predictable subplots.
Kumail Nanjiani, whom I loved in The Big Sick, has a unique style of humour. A mix of awkward, topical, witty and deprecating, yet again I found myself glued to his every move. While the script of The Big Sick had a better well-rounded script, this still felt like a Silicon Valley-spinoff, where his character falls on hard times and has to work at a sporting goods store while driving an Uber.
Dave, who looks like the lesser lovechild of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Rourke and Dolph Lundgren, is also somewhat entertaining, but at times feels constricted to the role especially when compared to his role in Guardians of the Galaxy. In the Marvel Universe, his character was a natural fit, allowing his sense of humour to organically shine through his character. He also had the advantage of Chris Pratt as lead actor who is comedy’s best quarterback, able to make almost any joke hit home with audiences.
The jokes here have sparks of intelligence but are mostly rote. The woes of a brown Uber driver in Los Angeles are entertaining and poignant but most of the physical comedy is humdrum and at most, elicits a weak chuckle.
Kumail’s spitfire comedy style makes dull lines come to life like his response to his boss’s claim that he is visiting a hair loss clinic because he is seeing one of the women there… “Is her name Propecia?”
Dave’s main role seems to ooze maximum machismo, look angry all the time and throw living and non-living things around. They try to add layers, with his father-daughter relationship, but even that feels forced. Natalie Morales, who played his daughter Nicole, was flawless. She was impeccable in her comedic and dramatic delivery, and yes, I may have a slight crush on her.
Yet, Dave’s character Vic remains fairly one-dimensional, making repeatedly bizarre and bad choices. I understand though that he is supposed to do that to a certain extent so we can find a middle-ground between his machismo and Stu’s utter lack of one.
It’s a tough sell especially when a cop rampages through a city known for its outrage over police brutality and almost no one seems to care. There was also a lot of squinting in his character, because of the Lasik surgery and it just felt like a dad joke, repeated even though it wasn’t and isn’t funny.
As Stu chaperones Vic around town, at times the movie began to feel like an advertorial for Uber. There are scenes showing how easy it is to get the app, its features and amenities to expect in a five-star ride.
I also have a sneaking suspicion the company green-lighted this movie to give it more positive publicity in establishing and maintaining healthy platonic relationships, especially in light of all the scandals it has seen in the last couple of years.
One thing I did particularly enjoy was that someone seemed to have an explanation for the science behind certain bits of the movie. Yes, there were some un-survivable explosions but for the most part, like when Stu’s electric car exploded, they explained the science, “The propane tanks!”
Overall it was an entertaining couple of hours. The jokes were delivered well and even Dave managed to get a few laughs out of me. The plot was predictable but the action part was fairly well executed with some excellent car chases and hand-to-hand fights.
I would have liked to see more of the organic camaraderie between the two lead characters, as well as a better “bad guy” but I’ll still give it three popcorns. Mainly because Kumail is one of my favourite comedians and it seems to have started with seeds of intelligence but morphed into something ginormous and Hollywood-esque.
Naman’s verdict: 3/5
