Film

Next Day Air

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Downgrade. Scrub‘s Faison goes from surgeon to shipping employee.

Somewhere on the periphery of Next Day Air is a mildly amusing buddy comedy about a couple of pothead package-delivery guys who stumble into the middle of a drug deal gone wrong and accidentally come out of it ahead. Unfortunately, that storyline, which is played up in the trailers, is only maybe one-quarter of Air’s actual content. Scrubs’ Faison (also a producer) plays one of the clueless employees of a low-rent shipping company, and he at least has a fairly substantial role; Mos Def is the movie’s highlight as a slightly more savvy stoner, but he barely gets 10 minutes of screen time.

The Details

Next Day Air
One and a half stars
Wood Harris, Mike Epps, Donald Faison.
Directed by Benny Boom.
Rated R.
Beyond the Weekly
Next Day Air
Rotten Tomatoes: Next Day AIr
IMDb: Next Day Air

Air is really about the intersection of bumbling criminals who are all after the package of cocaine that Faison’s Leo mistakenly delivers to a pair of dim-witted hoods (Harris, Epps). The two small-time crooks try to sell the drugs, while a drug kingpin pressures the shipment’s intended recipient to track it down. Despite the scores of bullets that fly during the movie’s climax, it’s a decidedly low-stakes story, which makes the seriousness with which music-video director Boom (making his feature debut) stages things especially irritating.

The jokes aren’t particularly funny, but most of the time they’re not even there; stand-up comedian Epps barely gets to crack a smile, and Boom and screenwriter Blair Cobbs instead focus on tired gangsta posturing and crude violence, delivered with a complete lack of style. Deeply buried, a fun little stoner comedy cries for help.

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