Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani is such a random pairing, it’s almost like the producers of “Stuber” threw the names of every Hollywood celebrity into a hat and pulled it’s two stars out of that hat by chance. Unfortunately, the material their working with would make it difficult for any star duo to succeed.
Bautista stars as “Vic” a tough as nails cop who’s trying to crack a case he’s been working on for years. When he gets a break on the same day he’s having lasik surgery done, he wanders into an Uber being driven by “Stu”, who’s bully boss calls “Stuber”, and the two go on a series of wild chases to catch the bad guy, while trying to fix their own personal problems and come out of this mess as better people.
And credit to Bautista and Nanjiani, they almost make it work. But not quite.
While it has it’s funny moments, most of the material is just slap-stick silliness, which is beneath someone like Nanjiani, who gave us the excellent dramedy ” The Big Sick”. Bautista looks convincing busting heads and firing guns but we knew that already. The entire film is also pretty predictable and at times feels like an Uber commercial.
Michael Dowse can film a heck of a car chase, and there is a great opening action sequence that hooks us, but it’s watered down by too many scenes where nothing important in the film happens and everything going on around us makes it very difficult to take “Stuber” seriously. And that is ultimately what makes it very mediocre.
GRADE: C-
Rated: R
Running time: 1hr 15 minutes
