Stuber

Stuber (2019)

42% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 212 reviews)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Michael Dowse

Starring: David Bautista, Kumail Nanjiani, Natalie Morales, Iko Uwais, Mira Sorvino

From: 20th Century Fox

Another movie I can thank an online discount for.

As has happened before, an online entity I am a member of and I pay money to offers me a one time only discount on something; the last time that happened before this, I got to see The Fanatic; at least Stuber was better than that but it being a new release that I could see for cheap was a reason why I saw something that did not impress me from the trailers. That said, most trailers aren't good in general and I heard there were a few bloody moments. That was true, although of course it was all digital blood and the action scenes had its share of issues.

Much to my dismay, this used a shaky-cam nauseating style that made the action not pleasing to watch at all, and that is hogwash when the villain is-a blonde-haired-Iko Uwais; then again, you only see him in the opening and deep in the final act. Another problem with me and this action/comedy... I rarely laughed. Often in the past, my opinions on humor and modern comedies have been brought up. In short, my sense of humor is different from a lot of people and what is modern “comedy” now has little interest to me; this movie has plenty of that. What I mean is... rude abrasive people all over the place, rambling improv BS, thinking that vulgarity on its own is great, thinking that ironic juxtaposition on its own is great, etc. This movie is all about that, along with an incredibly predictable plot where the plot twists are the opposite of shocking and all the characters are one note stereotypes.

It's a shame as while the plot is a gimmick, at least the concept of ride sharing services being the crux of the plot is a fresh idea and the idea of a wimpy Nissan Leaf having to drive around a hulking brute police officer because he had Lasik surgery... it COULD have been funny. Unfortunately, this only got some chuckles from me. I can admit that there were some odd song choices I could never have imagined action setpieces set to and Bautista managed to be pretty charming. Kumail Nanjiani, this is the first thing I've seen him in and well... I will try and avoid most of his movies; that's how unfunny I found him to be most of the time and I'll presume this is the “humor” he uses in those other modern comedies.


I am sure this will work better for many other people; me, I think it will be best to be awfully choosy in a genre that lost me a long while ago.