Forced Friendship (Stuber, 2019)

Stuber_PosterKumail Nanjiani is the titular Stu.  Stu is a…uh… studious guy.  He works to thankless job, and is helping a woman he is in love with start her own business. Meanwhile, Dave Bautista is the reckless and angry cop Vic.  Vic is dedicated to catching the cop killing drug dealer Oka Tedjo.  But on the day he gets eye surgery, he finds out that he only has hours to find Oka.

This leads to Vic Reluctantly ordered an Uber ride and forcing the driver, Stu, to take him around town tracking the villain down holding the promise of a badly needed Five Star Rating over his head.

The main things to like in the film is that Nanjiani and Bautista.  They work well together, Bautista working his “tough guy muscles” and Nanjiani flexing his “nice but downtrodden guy muscles”. That part works really well.

Unfortunately, they are surrounded by a largely predictable and cliched story.  They try and lampshade this, making light of the cliches, but the film never feels like it is truly having fun with the action premise as much as it appears they wanted to.  I saw every major plot twist coming.  And that is too bad…this film has a good cast (the leads are supported by Natalie Morales as the daughter of Vic and Mira Sorvino as Vic’s boss).

I am not saying you should avoid the film…it has it’s moments. It looks good and again, the cast is great.  I enjoyed their interactions and performances.  The movie is okay as a diversion for an hour and half of your time. I just feel like it could have been…more.

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