Film an absurd waste of your time

Review

Coffee and Kareem (16+, 88 mins) Directed by Michael Dowse Reviewed by James Croot

★

Touted as a homage to 1980s high-concept buddy cop comedies like 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop, this foulmouthed farrago feels more like an insult to those movies’ memories.

Literally a one-joke comedy (or, at least, that’s the number of times I laughed during its running-time),

Coffee and Kareem is a celebration of ineptitude, where each onedimensional character introduced is more annoying than the last.

Our unlikely uniformed hero is Detroit metro police officer James Coffee (Ed Helms). Known as something of a klutz, his career stocks plummet after notorious narcotics trafficker Orlando Johnson’s (RonReaco Lee) escape from custody is broadcast to the entire city.

To make matters worse, Coffee is getting a hard time from his new beau’s 12-year-old boy. Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) makes it clear he has no respect for the man schtupping his mother, but his mum Vanessa (a criminally under-utilised Taraji P Henson) won’t hear a word said against her ‘‘little man’’.

Things come to a head when Kareem decides to hire Johnson to scare off Coffee, unaware of their recent dealings with one another, or the former’s fugitive status. Then, when he witnesses a murder, Kareem is the one who finds himself on the run and desperately needing Coffee’s help.

As an action-comedy, all this might be tolerable, entertaining even, were it not for director Michael Dowse (Stuber, It’s All Gone Pete Tong), and feature debutant screenwriter Shane Mack’s decision to prioritise profanities over plot.

Coffee and Kareem feels like an exemplar of when film-makers get over-excited about Netflix’s more relaxed attitude to swears and violence and forget they’re actually supposed to be telling a coherent story. And unlike last year’s envelope-pushing comedy, Good

Boys, there’s no redeeming sweetness underlying the abundant salty language.

It also doesn’t help that the central pair have less chemistry than the duos in Turner and Hooch and

K-9, and Gardenhigh’s character is cinema’s worst problem child since, well, Problem Child.

Tone deaf, ‘‘offensive and backwards’’ – as one character describes a particular scenario – this modern-day Cop-and-a-Half is less 48 Hours and more 90 minutes of your life you won’t get back. If you’re desperate for a buddy cop comedy go search out The Other Guys, Police Academy or Rush Hour on the streaming services. The Last

Action Hero is perfect for all your light-hearted kid-in-peril needs, while this disaster even makes

White Chicks appealing. Netflix’s algorithm bills Coffee

and Kareem as ‘‘absurd, irreverent, exciting’’. It’s one-third right. A better description would be ‘‘absurd, irrelevant, execrable’’.

Coffee and Kareem is streaming on Netflix.