IT’S A FARE COP
Odd couple comedy sees an Uber driver reluctantly sucked into a grizzled cop’s almost suicidal bid to bring his partner’s killers to justice
It’s generally not a great advert for LA’s taxi drivers or its police as the pair leave a path of property damage and death in their wake
STUBER (15) ★★★★★ BY CHRISTOPHER HUNNEYSETT
COPS and cars cause chaos in this middle-of-the-road mismatched buddy action comedy which never goes full throttle.
Marvel action star Dave Bautista stars as a rule-breaking LAPD -detective who commandeers Kumail Nanjiani’s Uber taxi to chase down bad guys.
Nearly blind after eye surgery, the cop is determined to catch the drug dealer who killed his partner, and his obsessive behaviour threatens to thwart the driver’s romantic plans for the evening.
The stars work hard to generate sufficient comedy friction to power the workaday plot, with their banter punctuated by blood-splattering shoot-outs and hardpunching fistfights.
Easily the best scene in the movie is a showdown that takes place in an animal hospital, where bullets fly to the sound of The Hollies’ hit song, The Air That I Breathe.
It’s generally not a great advert for LA’s taxi drivers or its police as the pair leave a path of property damage and death in their wake.
However, there’s a surprising lack of car chases for a film about a cab driver as Nanjiani’s electric vehicle isn’t up to haring around at 100mph in the manner of Steve McQueen in 1968’s car chase classic thriller Bullitt.
Instead the script uses the duo’s generational culture gap to comment on changing ideas of masculinity, while also playfully mocking the conventions of
action movies. A strip club is full of male dancers, which would never have happened to Mel Gibson or Sly Stallone in their all-action heyday.
As Bautista channels some old-fashioned angry machismo, Nanjiani provides mild mannered metropolitan sensitivity, and both are unable to express their feelings to the women in their lives.
Indonesian action star Iko Uwais gets to show off some of his intense stunt skills, and Bautista’s co-star, Scottish Guardians of the Galaxy actress Karen Gillan, appears all too briefly.
I wish she’d been allowed to stick around and kick this movie into a higher gear.