Coffee & Kareem

COFFEE & KAREEM - NETFLIX

Coffee & Kareem is the kind of movie that reaffirms the notion that some films just are not meant to be seen on the big screen. Netflix’s dull buddy cop movie is not about two cops but a cop, James Coffee (Ed Helms), and his buddy, Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh), who get sucked into a criminal conspiracy. There is some more backstory, mostly centring on Kareem’s attempt to stop Coffee from dating his mom (Taraji P. Henson), but all you need to know is that this is precisely what the marketing promised: a dumb action-comedy.

The film comes from the director Michael Dowse, whose previous work – Stuber – while equally dumb, was at least explosively funny and a lot more fun to watch. Stuber had a much better script, a fact that is as clear as day once realised that screenwriter Shane Mack always falls back on foul language or a sex-related joke once he runs out of ideas in Coffee & Kareem – which is most of the time. 

Unfortunately for him, most of the jokes do not land. Despite the best efforts of the actors, especially Helms – who is very believable as a genuinely nice guy – and a wonderfully unhinged Betty Gilpin – who plays a corrupt cop. It is not much of a spoiler that she is corrupt if the viewer has seen Stuber, where Dowse pulls the same twist. It is not hard to see coming even if the viewer has not seen Stuber because Dowse telegraphs his “twist” pretty early on and once it comes, he does not seem to care anymore, moving on to the next turgid gag with just as little energy. Most importantly, that lack of caring goes for the audience as well. None of the characters in this film feels like real people; they are chess pieces on the board that is the plot.

The worst offender is Kareem himself, a character who does not have much of a personality to call his own. He is basically any of the kids from Good Boys in the fact that his only trait is that he curses a lot. He makes wisecracks with his teacher and his friend, but his wisecracks are lacking. 

Aside from some hilariously inept bad guys and Gilpin’s deranged breakdowns, Coffee & Kareem is not very amusing. If it was, perhaps some of its narrative inconsistencies and generic characters could have been forgiven. Instead, when the humour is not working, the only thing left to fall back on is the characters and they are not worth following over the thankfully sparse eighty eight-minute runtime.

COFFEE & KAREEM is streaming exclusively on NETFLIX from April 3rd 2020