We all need a good laugh right now during the stress of the coronavirus shutdown.
So you might be curious to check out a new comedy trending in the Top 3 on Netflix.
It’s called “Coffee & Kareem,” a buddy romp that plays like “Training Day” (2001) meets “Role Models” (2008), only nowhere near as realistic as the former and nowhere near as funny as the latter. No, “Coffee & Kareem” is way too raunchy for anyone to truly love it.
Set in Detroit, the story follows 12-year-old Kareem Manning (Terrence Little Gardenhigh), who is angry that his mom Vanessa (Taraji P. Henson) is dating a white cop, James Coffee (Ed Helms). So, the kid hires a criminal to scare Coffee, but of course the plan goes awry.
Don’t expect this to be a “kick-ass trio” like Henson suggested in our interview last week. You’ll be disappointed to learn that she is barely in it at all other than the opening scene and the final act, wasting her talents from “Empire” (2015) to “Hidden Figures” (2016).
If there were a third lead it would instead go to Betty Gilpin (“Isn’t it Romantic?”), who chews up the scenery as Detective Watts, spitting sarcastic zingers alongside colleague David Alan Greer (“In Living Color”) as the no-nonsense veteran of the force Captain Hill.
The baddies get the funniest bits as RonReaco Lee (“The Shield”) steals the show as drug kingpin Orlando Johnson, bickering with henchmen Rodney and Dee (Andrew Bachelor and William “Big Sleeps” Stewart) in an ear-cutting spoof of “Reservoir Dogs” (1992).
Still, all of the hilarious supporting characters in the world don’t matter if the central duo doesn’t click, which is an obviously essential component for the success of a buddy flick.
Helms does his part, having proven his hilarity as Andy Bernard in “The Office” (2006) and Stu in “The Hangover” (2009) with a few duds in between (his remake of “Vacation”). As Coffee, he’s believable as a dork trying too hard to endear himself as stepdad material.
However, Gardenhigh (Nickelodeon’s “Danger Force”) comes across way too unlikeable. It’s not that he’s miscast — he’s a formidable teen actor trying his best — he just isn’t done any favors by the raunchy script. Admittedly, it’s a personal pet peeve of mine to watch kids try to be funny in films by cursing, because it almost always comes across forced.
Sure, it’s mildly amusing to watch Finn Wolfhard cursing in “Stranger Things” (2016) and “It” (2017), but a little bit goes a long way. It’s much funnier when the kids use limited vocabulary like “butt sniffer” in “The Sandlot” (1993) or when adults are in on the joke like Vince Vaughn saying, “Ear muffs” to shield his kid from profanity in “Old School” (2003).
“Role Models” (2008) somehow miraculously pulled it off because child actor Bobb’e J. Thompson wasn’t so relentlessly graphic in his put-downs of Seann William Scott. There was also more of a heart behind their character arc, their bond gradually growing until the winning medieval role-playing battle alongside Paul Rudd and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
“Coffee & Kareem” offers too few moments of bonding between its title duo. The blame falls to director Michael Dowse, who gained cult comedy acclaim for “Goon” (2011) before the Uber stinker “Stuber” (2018), and screenwriter Shane Mack, who makes his feature writing debut after the telling short film “The Guy Who’s F***ing Your Girlfriend” (2013).
That’s not to knock Mack entirely. His script moves well and makes clever observations about modern parenting as the kid’s face is constantly buried in his phone. As Coffee tries to talk to him in the car, Kareem has an entirely separate text conversation with his buddy. For a moment, it feels like a timely flick about kids growing up too fast with technology.
And yet, any social commentary is undercut by the underlying nastiness of a premise about a black kid angry that his mom’s boyfriend is white. It’s immediately off-putting, just as it would be for any movie about a white kid who hates that his mom is dating a black man. It’s hard to buy in when half of your audience is slammed right from the jump.
By the time the movie reaches its predictable conclusion, the dirty-cop twist is more of a “duh” than a revelation. As Coffee & Kareem drive in circles around a roundabout like “European Vacation” (“Big Ben, Parliament!”), it becomes a metaphor for the movie itself, always speeding recklessly forward, but going round and round in circles.
If you’re looking for a mindless action-comedy romp to stream while you’re stuck at home, this might be enough. Just make sure the kids aren’t in the room to hear the language or see the violence, which sort of defeats the purpose of a child lead, don’t you think?
Or, if you’re more discerning, you might hold off on this Netflix flick and stream “Role Models” on Amazon Prime instead. Not only will you laugh harder, you’ll feel better about humanity in a way that “Coffee & Kareem” is too immature to capture with any real feeling.
To quote the kid, “You expect us to be BFF? F*** out of my face, man.”
