Stuber: 5 Sterne undercover

Okay, the movie has been out for a while but the theater was decently filled. Granted, the story is not very original but it had some good action scenes and everybody in the audience was laughing and laughing and laughing. In the end I found it entertaining and funny and I liked both main characters.

....it's a 6 instead of 7.6, it's because a bunch of people expected it to be an action fest where Bautista was the toughest guy in the room. They were disappointed. Too bad. Very decent flick, Kumail funny as always, Bautista showing some range, nice, good supporting characters...formulaic a bit? Sure. But worth watching, action, comedy, you could definitely do worse.

There are many reasons to be grateful for movie theater subscription cards, but the biggest one is that I find myself checking out movies I wouldn't normally have gone to see, mainly due to poor marketing. Stuber is the common case of an awful marketing campaign that turned out to be a pretty solid summer buddy film, with two rising stars in Hollywood in Nanjiani & Bautista. It borrows from many buddy-cop classics but their chemistry is enough to put some of the comedy that falls flat over the edge and bring some laugh out loud moments to the forefront. Granted, there were many big comedic scenes that were in the trailer, but that's inevitable in this day and age, and shows you even further how poor the marketing was for the film. It won't make enough money, but I could have definitely gone for more entries into this series with Bautista & Nanjiani.

6.9/10

A perfect light evening filler where I laughed a lot. Bautista and Nanjinani worked great together. A movie I would probably watch again, which I can not say a lot these days.

Police detective Vic Manning (Dave Bautista) is obsessed with criminal Oka Tedjo who killed his partner. His boss Angie McHenry (Mira Sorvino) tells him to spend time with his daughter Nicole (Natalie Morales). Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) is a sad sack, obsessed with friend Becca (Betty Gilpin), and stuck in a dead-end job. Vic is having trouble with his vision and hires Uber driver Stu on a dangerous pursuit of the villain Tedjo.

The pairing starts off a little wonky. The premise is also a little wonky. It doesn't make sense that Stu wouldn't simply call the cops or not drive. Over time, the pairing does grow on me. They have some chemistry and Kumail gets more comedic rather than simply being a pathetic whiner. It's a basic odd couple duo on a road-trip police investigation. It's trying to be 48 Hrs but it's not at that level.