This article brought to you by Rim Chiropractic
Article by Nathan Hurlbut
Back in 2017, Kumail Nanjiani starred in a remarkable movie that was based on his relationship with his wife Emily Gordon. It was called The Big Sick, and told the autobiographical story of their budding romantic relationship overcoming the major obstacle of sustaining itself when Emily becomes very ill.
Nanjiani and his wife Gordon actually co-wrote the witty script together, even naming Nanjiani’s character Kumail in a nod to their true-life story. Their little independent movie went on to be nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay and proved to be one of the best films of the year.
One of the details of their story was that Nanjiani’s character was trying to make it as a stand-up comic in Chicago, and was driving for Uber on the side to make ends meet. So when Hollywood was casting for a new movie called Stuber about an Uber driver who gets unwillingly mixed up in a passenger’s manhunt for a dangerous killer, Nanjiani must have seemed the perfect fit. “He’s funny and he already has experience playing an Uber driver onscreen, so he’s perfect,” the studio meeting might have gone, and Nanjiani was cast.
Alas, neither Nanjiani or his wife Emily actually had a hand in writing Stuber, which was the film studio’s first mistake, since this lumbering, shopworn movie shows little of the originality or wit of their sharp little movie.
Nanjiani is Stu, an Uber driver living and working in Los Angeles who picks up police detective Vic Manning (Dave Bautista) as one of his customers. Vic’s recent laser eye surgery means he needs Stu to drive him on his personal manhunt for Teijo (Iko Uwais), the criminal who killed his partner Sara (Karen Gillan). Vic’s aggressive masculinity contrasts abrasively with Stu’s mild mannered disposition, and the two form an unlikely partnership in Vic’s quest to avenge his former partner’s death.
The comparison of Stuber to Nanjiani’s own The Big Sick is telling, since this movie is most noteworthy for the other, far superior movies it is borrowing from. Iko Uwais is from the remarkable Indonesian action movies The Raid (2011) and The Raid 2 (2014) that feature jaw-dropping state-of-the-art martial arts sequences, representing the pinnacle of recent action movies. Unfortunately his character of Teijo is more of a plot point than an actual person here, and Uwais is given much less screen time here to show his chops when a genuine showcase of his talents could have pushed the movie into more exciting territory.
Meanwhile, Dave Bautista comes from the endlessly entertaining Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) movies, where the literal-minded mentality of his character of Dax is frequently mined for comic effect. In Stuber, Bautista plays Vic effectively enough, creating an onscreen chemistry between him and Nanjiani that often overcomes the movie’s many flaws. Unfortunately, he isn’t given much in the way of worthy material to work with, as his character is an unimaginative stereotype- the kind of macho, emotionally repressed cop we’ve seen so many times before. His visual impairment gags, the result of his character’s recent laser eye surgery (itself, yet another plot contrivance) is used for broad, slapstick comedy, and mostly succeeds at revealing how funny Nanjiani’s witty quips are in comparison.
In fact, the film features one plot contrivance after another to keep the story moving forward, like buoys sporadically resting on the ocean surface to desperately keep a swimmer afloat. The screenplay strains so hard to find ways to keep Stu from merely walking away from the situation that the implausibility of it all eventually becomes overwhelming, and you have to submit to just tagging along for the ride.
On a side note, the movie probably features the most blatant use of product placement ever, as its very plot (and even its title) is entirely dependent on the Uber driving service. There’s even an obligatory montage sequence of assorted passengers that Stu picks up during the day, with its familiarity only reinforcing the lack of imagination at work here.
The movie is at its most inspired, in fact, whenever Nanjiani throws yet another clever quip into the mix, like when he asks his receding-hairline boss if his new girlfriend is named “Propecia”. Without Nanjiani onboard delivering these (assumedly) improvised ad-libs, Stuber would be as much as an Uber ride from Hell for the audience as it is for his onscreen character of Stu.
Rated R