Decaf Canadian comedy a weak brew

Coffee & Kareem

Cast: Ed Helms, Terrence Little Gardenhigh, Taraji P. Henson

Director: Michael Dowse

Duration: 1 h 28 m

Available: Netflix

Is it better to ask of a director: “Where did he go?” or “What happened to him?” Put another way: Would you rather be Todd Field, missing in action since delivering the thrice Academy Award-nominated Little Children in 2006, or Kevin Smith, whose last five films have averaged 42.6 per cent at Rotten Tomatoes?

Canadian Michael Dowse is in danger of falling into Smith territory with Coffee & Kareem. Along with last summer’s Stuber, this is his second comedy in nine months to feature a mismatched cop/civilian pairing, intense levels of swearing and violence, dirty cops, a visit to a strip club and a weird Canadian connection. In Stuber, it was Kumail Nanjiani’s Montreal bagel shop T-shirt and fondness for Coffee Crisps. This time it’s a French-Canadian gang headed up by Quebec actor Serge Houde.

One more unfortunate connection: Neither movie is very funny.

Coffee & Kareem stars Ed Helms as James Coffee, an inept Detroit police officer who’s busted down to traffic duty after letting a suspect escape from his car and then drive off in it.

James is dating Vanessa (Taraji P. Henson), presumably because he likes his women like his coffee; strong. Vanessa has a 12-year-old son named Kareem, played by Terrence Little Gardenhigh. The kid hates the idea that his mom is dating anyone, but having a white cop as a potential stepdad is beyond the pale.

So he does what any self-respecting fifth-grader would do — visits a local gangster to arrange for a hit on Coffee. (What I wouldn’t give for him to request two bullets to each knee, known as a double-double.)

Alas, Kareem witnesses another cop getting shot, and soon all three protagonists are on the run from a variety of bad guys. It’s also a film in which a snippet of dialogue — “There’s a line, and that is so far past it!” — inadvertently functions as a rebuke to the screenplay.

Dowse’s own first feature was the 2002 hoser comedy Fubar, which featured the immortal tagline “Just give’r” and spawned a 2017 TV series. He followed that with 2004’s It’s All Gone Pete Tong — a wicked comedy with a soundtrack to match — and as recently as 2013 made the rom-com The F Word (a.k.a. What If) with Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan.

But it’s never too late for filmmaking talents to turn it around. Coffee & Kareem is set in Detroit but was filmed in Vancouver, so that’s a start. Twitter places Dowse in Montreal at the moment, and with the border closed he’s ours. I suggest that as soon as the film industry cranks into motion again, we give him work befitting his proven abilities. ∏