Stuber tells the story of an Uber ride gone bad. Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) works a day job and drives Uber at night to help support the dreams of his best friend Becca, who he’s also in love with. Vic (Dave Bautista) is a cop hell-bent on avenging the death of his partner at the hands of Oka Tedjo, a high-level drug smuggler. The two men are forced together when Vic gets laser eye surgery but is shortly thereafter tipped off about Tedjo’s next drop. Unable to drive himself, Vic calls ‘Stuber’ and the two unlikely allies work together (albeit mostly unwillingly on the part of Stu) to try and take down Tedjo. In the process, revealing a conspiracy involving crooked cops, male strippers, and a surprising amount of violence.
That was the first thing that stuck out to me in Stuber, they leaned hard into their R rating and delivered much more violence than I expected. Not to say it’s a gory, violent movie by any means but when shit goes down, shit goes DOWN y’all. Speaking of, director Michael Dowse brings an action sensibility to the film that gives it an edge. Often, an action-comedy is so preoccupied with the comedy that they forget about the action. Stuber actually handles both extremely well, instead opting to skip out on the emotional resonance of other films in the genre.
Whether or not the filmmakers were outright inspired by it or not, the rebooted Jump Street franchise is ingrained in Stuber‘s DNA. 21 Jump Street set the standard for the latest fad of adult-action-comedies but Stuber fails to capture that film’s same sense of an ‘earned’ dramatic ending. Sure, Vic gets the bad guy and Stu stands up for himself to Becca. But, he also takes a bullet intended for Vic’s daughter, a girl he barely knows. It’s supposed to represent the men’s budding friendship and mutual respect but just felt weird and, again, unearned except for one joke earlier in the film alluding to it. That’s how a lot of the third act plays out, seemingly unrelated beats that were “set-up” by a one-liner earlier in the film playing out like an on-screen checklist.
But, enough about what Stuber gets wrong. Let’s talk more about what it gets right: the comedy. Like I said above, the action scenes and set-piece direction more than make up for the lack of emotional weight. But, for these types of movies to really succeed, you need real on-screen chemistry between your leads. And Stuber has it in spades. Neither Nanjiani or Bautista are playing wholly ‘new’ characters here, which I think really helps. Nanjiani is used to being the dry asshole in Silicon Valley and Bautista has gotten pretty comfortable as the shoot-first-ask-questions-later tough guy without emotions as Drax in the Marvel films.
It’s that comfort that really sells the film. Every time they’re on screen together, they know their roles and its obvious that they feed off each other. Sure, some of Nanjiani’s quippy one-liners get a little cheesy and Bautista’s tough-guy schtick veers into the unbelievable sometimes. But, the comedy sticks the landing and even steers into the overwhelmingly goofy without losing itself. The best example of this comes when the two men fight later in the film and Nanjiani actually holds his own against Bautista. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s goofy, then, 10-15 minutes later, they flip the switch back to action without missing a beat.
Overall, the notes I jotted down immediately after seeing it put it best:
More violent than I expected, in a good way. The emotional parts mostly fell flat for me, especially the ending. Still, a funny movie though, had me laughing throughout and laughing out loud multiple times. (I was in a relatively empty showing but the few of us who were there seemed to love it.) Strong action directing also brings an edge to the entire film that, along with the exaggerated violence, grounds the film and makes up for the lackluster drama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HawuOwJF0Kk
