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Next Day Air
If you can read these words, your IQ is too high for this movie
2009
Review: June 2, 2009
Director: Benny Boom
Starring: Donald Faison, Mike Epps, Wood Harris, Ysmin Deliz, Omarai Hardwick
That may be the only way to enjoy this.
THE SETUP:
A box of cocaine is delivered to the wrong apartment. Those guys try to sell it. Violence ensues.
DISCUSSION:
When I first saw the trailer for this, it looked like it could be pretty funny. Then pretty good reviews came out, such as one from the New York Times, which hailed the intelligent direction and the screenplay, which they called “a feat of textural and structural inventiveness.” So me and my friend went! And sat there for 90 minutes, not laughing, not entertained… just bewildered at how anyone could find this funny… why this film was made… what they were trying to get at…
We are introduced to two roommates, Mike Epps as Brody and Wood Harris as Guch. They talk about the guy who is perpetually sleeping on their couch, then decide to get stoned and play video games. We meet Donald Faison as Leo, a delivery man for NDA, Next Day Air, who is always stoned and smells strongly of pot. He is yelled at by his manager, who is soon revealed to be his mother. Apparently that fact is supposed to be funny. He promises not to smoke on the job again, then goes straight out and smokes. He delivers a large box, but he’s such a moron he takes it to the apartment of Brody and Guch, instead of Hispanic Jesus and Chita, right across the hall. It contains ten bricks of cocaine that Jesus was expecting from a gangster in L.A. Brody and Guch open it, and immediately make plans to try to sell it. Meanwhile Jesus is freaking that it hasn’t arrived, since he knows the dealer who sent it is such a violent badass.
So it’s 20 minutes in and I haven’t laughed once, nor even found anything remotely amusing. It also soon becomes apparent that the script, this “feat of textural and structural inventiveness,” is the product of someone who has either never taken a writing class or never learned anything in it if he did. Mos Def shows up as Leo’s brother, but this whole part goes nowhere and adds nothing to the story. A lengthy diversion into a subplot concerning Brody’s cousin’s storage unit being robbed goes nowhere and has nothing to do with the story, except to explain why he was a few hours later getting back. A flashback showing Brody cutting out someone’s tongue is apropos of nothing and has no relation whatsoever on the rest of the movie. On the way out, my friend and I were cataloguing the many, many detours this film takes that have nothing to do with the plot of main action of the film. Of course, it wouldn’t matter if any of them were funny…
SPOILERS > > >
After much pointless meandering and time-wasting we finally get all the various gangster factions together in Brody’s apartment, where they all shoot each other, and that’s pretty much the end. One guy escapes with nothing. Another with the money. Another with the drugs. Everyone else is dead, and not in a funny or interesting way—they just get shot. And that’s it!
< < < SPOILERS END
This is one of those movies that really makes you wonder if maybe you’ve suddenly been transported to another planet, with different manners and customs, as I absolutely could not see what anyone would get out of this movie or why anyone would even MAKE this movie. The director, Benny Boom, has only made music videos before this, and this is the first screenplay by Blair Cobbs. Again, it would be one thing if it were even a tiny bit funny, but I only chuckled a few times, and those were less genuine laughs and more “I-paid-$12.50-for-this-and-goddamnit-I’m going-to-laugh-once” kind of laughs. Someone people on the IMDb say they would this movie absolutely hilarious and… I’m afraid I would be led to make a harsh critique of their intellectual capacity if I took this sentence further.
Aside from all this, there is not ONE admirable, or even non-despicable character in the entire film. Maybe this is supposed to be part of the humor, but it’s an ugly joke. Every single black person here is on drugs and stealing. Leo is an idiot pothead. His brother opens the boxes he is supposed to be delivering and steals from them. He says if he is ever accused of anything he will simply go on Larry King and cry discrimination. Guch is talking incessantly about robbing people, including and especially his friends and family. I’m unable to really criticize it, being white, but don’t blacks get upset at being lumped in with all this? Why is Spike Lee tormenting Clint Eastwood’s geriatric ass and giving this a pass? This seems to me far more damaging to the cause of overcoming racism, here you have a movie made by blacks, for blacks, saying “HELL YES we’re all untrustworthy, amoral, moronic, drug-addicted criminals!”
Many other reviews cast this film as a return to blaxploitation. I would argue that most blaxploitation films are far, FAR better than this, feature at least one admirable character, often have intriguing plots and well-rounded characters, and are ABOUT something. Don’t insult blaxploitation by comparing it to this piss. Worst movie of 2009 so far, and I’m skeptical it will be surpassed.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
No! Although it’s so generally off it starts to have scientific value.
