I saw this at an advance screening, and went in hoping for the best. Given the popularity of ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, I thought the idea for a buddy comedy about Uber could be both entertaining and timely, and the film has two strong leads (Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista.) Unfortunately, this was a dreadful attempt at action comedy that has some (surprisingly) visceral action scenes, yet fails miserably at virtually every other aspect.
The film centers around a highly aggressive LAPD officer (Bautista) looking for a brutal heroin dealer. However, he cannot drive to the locations that he needs to go to due to his Lasik surgery affecting his vision. As a result, he gets in an Uber with a mild-mannered, composed driver (Nanjiani) trying to keep his star rating up, who has to keep going around with him to stop the dealer. The film's plot generally consists of going from point A to point B and point C, which is fine, but the story's narrative never manages to take any structural risks. As a comedy, "Stuber" falls pretty flat. While there are a few mildly amusing lines of dialogue, the humor is an awkward mishmash of cheap jokes about Uber, raunchy R-rated jokes, weak puns, and erratic pop culture references. None of the jokes or "points" of the narrative really add up to much significant. The more over-the-top moments in the film tend to rely on shock value just for the sake of it, unlike the better R-rated comedies that balance wit, irony, and strong writing with over-the-top content.
One of the film's biggest problems is its characterization. The film's two lead characters are far too "on the nose" to the point that it becomes difficult to even remotely suspend one's disbelief. This makes the characters more annoying than funny or amusing. The film's supporting characters are also embarrassingly written as their characterization is both paper-thin and of little prominence to the greater story arc as a whole. The actions of these poorly depicted characters end up serving as glaring clichés. While the film's (surprisingly intense) action is generally well-choreographed, that is the only thing recommendable about this otherwise disastrous action-comedy. Even though Stu wants to earn a five-star rating in this movie, the film itself is only deserving of 1 star. 2/10
The film centers around a highly aggressive LAPD officer (Bautista) looking for a brutal heroin dealer. However, he cannot drive to the locations that he needs to go to due to his Lasik surgery affecting his vision. As a result, he gets in an Uber with a mild-mannered, composed driver (Nanjiani) trying to keep his star rating up, who has to keep going around with him to stop the dealer. The film's plot generally consists of going from point A to point B and point C, which is fine, but the story's narrative never manages to take any structural risks. As a comedy, "Stuber" falls pretty flat. While there are a few mildly amusing lines of dialogue, the humor is an awkward mishmash of cheap jokes about Uber, raunchy R-rated jokes, weak puns, and erratic pop culture references. None of the jokes or "points" of the narrative really add up to much significant. The more over-the-top moments in the film tend to rely on shock value just for the sake of it, unlike the better R-rated comedies that balance wit, irony, and strong writing with over-the-top content.
One of the film's biggest problems is its characterization. The film's two lead characters are far too "on the nose" to the point that it becomes difficult to even remotely suspend one's disbelief. This makes the characters more annoying than funny or amusing. The film's supporting characters are also embarrassingly written as their characterization is both paper-thin and of little prominence to the greater story arc as a whole. The actions of these poorly depicted characters end up serving as glaring clichés. While the film's (surprisingly intense) action is generally well-choreographed, that is the only thing recommendable about this otherwise disastrous action-comedy. Even though Stu wants to earn a five-star rating in this movie, the film itself is only deserving of 1 star. 2/10