Stuber is One Silly Good Odd Couple Comedy

Listen, you don’t go to these for a good mystery or good villain. You go to these for a good odd couple pairing, typically one part great comedian and one part great action star. Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista are them and Stuber is it, an original comedy for chrissakes. Stop bellyaching about pretty tame violence, all things considered, and have a laugh for once. Bautista’s stocky frame stumbling around Los Angeles after Lasik surgery and Nanjiani fumbling around shootouts is a match made in bloodshed. Their chemistry is real and they look like they’re having a ball tripping over themselves to find The Raid‘s Iko Uwais, whose talents are sadly underused as a drug lord with special skills. Mira Sorvino, film career long dormant till now, pops up as Bautista’s sketchy superior. You can see where this is going and you don’t care, because Dave and Kumail beating the shit out of each other in an outdoor supplies store is too damn entertaining to care. They’re belting out soliloquies on masculinity whilst belting each other with golf clubs and fishing hooks (ouch), like two competing forms of man deciding the fate of all men. Alpha vs Beta, Toxic vs Tragic. Anyway, if you want a choice between streaming and theatrical some time in the future, put your money where your mouth is and watch an original mid-budget comedy like Stuber. Sooner or later, we may not have a choice anymore.

Grade: B