Stuber
- Lighthearted and fun, yet predictable and unoriginal, Stuber does nothing to enhance or advance the buddy comedy genre.
Full Disclosure: I was really rooting for this to be great. Kumail Nanjiani always delivers and Dave Bautista has grown on me over the last few years. That said, I came into this one with low expectations, which may have actually helped me enjoy this more than I would have otherwise.
Review
The premise for Stuber is great: A mild-mannered Uber driver gets roped into a world of drugs and violence when a hardened LAPD detective enlists his ride-sharing services for a day. It’s a solid logline, it’s easy to pitch, and it opens up a myriad of possibilities for comedic hijinks to ensue. It pairs Kumail Nanjiani with WWE crossover up-and-comer Dave Bautista. Nanjiani is as steady a comedic hand as there is in Hollywood today, and Bautista has more than held his own in his tenure as Drax in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Plus, Stuber is rated R, so you haven’t seen all the funniest parts of the movie in the trailers. Stuber has all the ingredients for a really funny comedy. Unfortunately, it falls just short of the mark.
The comedic chemistry between Bautista (left) and Nanjiani (right) just can’t make up for a subpar script.
Stuber is a strictly paint-by-numbers buddy comedy. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. If this was 1992, it would feel fresh and original. A leading role for a Pakistani actor who doesn’t play a terrorist partnered with a musclebound ex-wrestler who’s capable of more than just regurgitating one-liners would have been a welcome sight. Alas, this is 2019. The emotionally walled-off tough guy needs to learn to open up, and the meek, passive doormat of a guy needs to learn to toughen up and assert himself. Wow! Never seen that before! This script takes no risks… at all. There are no surprises. What you see is exactly what you get. The “twist” near the end has been done so many times that it verged on a self-aware parody of itself, yet it was played for surprise rather than laughs. The drug lord antagonist was lame and unconvincing. For a premise with so much potential and two actors who clearly tried their damndest to squeeze all of the juice they could out of the material they were given, it winds up being just OK.
Hopefully these two pair up again down the road, because when they were allowed to riff off of one another and let loose, they were legitimately funny together.
With that out of the way, this was, overall, a fun movie. I’d urge anyone to catch it when it’s available for streaming in a few months, but don’t go rushing to the theater. It’s easy to follow, it’s well-paced, and Nanjiani and Bautista are great together. It’s far superior to whatever shit Adam Sandler and co. decide to leak out every few months. There’s an earnestness to Stuber that’s impossible to fake. The cast and crew weren’t just simply going through the motions. Despite a valiant effort, they just couldn’t overcome a dauntingly mediocre script penned by Tripper Clancy. Kumail Nanjiani is an Academy Award nominated writer! He’s right there! In the movie! Give him a pass or three at the script, throw him a co-writing credit and a couple of extra ducats, and see what he delivers! Let the professional comedian punch it up a bit. Almost all of the laughs are performance-based, rather than situation-based. One rare exception comes in the form of a sequence taking place a male strip club. Once again though, no risks are taken. We’ve seen it before. Hearty chuckles could’ve been usurped by hysterical belly laughs if they only pushed a bit harder. Comedy is, at its simplest, the art of cleverly subverting the expectations of the audience. When you know how the entire story is going to unfold, beat for beat, within the first ten minutes of the film, it’s tough to stay engaged. This is where Stuber fails to hit its mark.
The dog is adorable though!
5 Quick Hits
The R-rated comedy as an entity has (with very few exceptions) been dying an agonizingly slow and painful death since the mid aughts, during the heydays of Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow. I hope that trend can reverse itself sooner rather than later. I just wanna laugh sometimes, damnit!
Steve Howey (Kevin from Shameless) deserved more here. His turn as a male stripper dishing out sage relationship advice to the emotionally vulnerable Nanjiani was a fantastically funny scene. I wish it was a more featured part, rather than an extended cameo.
Stoker the pit bull had the best character arc in the film. I’m a sucker for dogs, and to see this sweet, misunderstood big fella go from a repository for hiding drugs in gangland Los Angeles to finding a loving and happy home was great to see! Dave Bautista has three pit bulls in real life, so the connection between actor and animal was real and added true heart to a story that was lacking in that area.
Styx was my favorite band growing up, so the fact that their trademark anthem “Come Sail Away” was a featured song here scored some extra points with me personally.
In an exclusive story you’ll only find here, the most eventful thing that happened didn’t have anything to do with the movie. The main event of the evening was a crackhead (Meth? Special K? I didn’t take the time to ask.) relieving herself in a theater seat two rows down from me. The real kicker was the seat was already reserved! Rough night for the unsuspecting teen whose seat that rightfully belonged to. I didn’t investigate any further as the movie had already begun, but I hope the ticket-holder got a refund, or at least a voucher for some free Sour Patch Kids.
