I feel duped. I feel deceived.
I feel like I was sold something that wasn’t worth selling. These are my thoughts after managing to make it through “Coffee & Kareem.”
“Coffee and Kareem” is about a cop who is trying to build a bond between himself and his girlfriend’s son, when suddenly her son witnesses a murder.
So, you know how Netflix has added a little border across some of their original movies that says it is the “Top 5 Movie in the World” or something like that? As I was scrolling through the endless catalog of Netflix material, I saw those exact words come across the page as I clicked on “Coffee & Kareem.”
Hmm seems like an interesting movie, cool premise. Click.
This movie is not funny, which should be the antithesis of a self-proclaimed comedy such as this. All of the jokes are too crude to matter and they all feel old. The script is weak and seems to have been put together in one draft.
Speaking of which, our 12-year-old titular protagonist, Kareem, is sure to have said every curse word in the book by the end of this flick. It’s as if Screenwriter Shane Mack forgot that he was writing lines for a 12-year-old character.
Also, is slapstick comedy still funny? I’m honestly asking because it seems like certain actors, such as Ed Helms, believe that slapstick is still the best way to make people laugh. I’m not saying that some slapstick isn’t funny, but when it’s a heavy piece of the film, it gets old faster than fast.
A bright spot from this movie lies in the performance by former Vine star Andrew Bachelor, a.k.a. KingBach. Every scene he’s in is funny in my opinion. I rarely laughed during this hour and 28-minute ride along, but when he was onscreen this film became the comedy it claimed to be.
Taraji P. Henson plays Vanessa, Coffee’s girlfriend, and although she is underused in the film, she has a scene towards the end that was pretty entertaining.
The film also ends with all of its plot threads tied up neatly, except the movie never did enough to earn the ending it was so desperate to achieve. By the end of the movie, Coffee and Kareem have become friends; this after spending the entirety of the film bickering and posturing. So much posturing.
Overall: I don’t like to roast movies often, but this one was a terrible choice.
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