Coffee & Kareem is streaming on Netflix.
Years ago, I worked with a guy and got a very close look at his sense of humor. He was responsible, well-liked, and good at his job. Yet no matter what he was doing, if he saw someone fall, he would immediately die of laughter. You’d hear this loud, almost Joker-style cackling, and you’d say to yourself, “Yep, someone just went down.”
Was he a bad guy? No. Did he have an unsophisticated comedic palate? Considering that I crack up when Will Ferrell starts screaming, I’d also say no. If you find a thing funny, that’s great. But if you’re making a comedy, you’re going to want to expand your horizons beyond a single joke. That’s what drove me nuts about the new comedy Coffee & Kareem; there’s genuinely funny stuff on the margins that kept getting pushed back by a tired central premise.
It’s hard being a cop. It’s really hard being a cop in Detroit. If you’re James Coffee (Ed Helms), a cop in Detroit who’s a) white and b) not good at his job, the mountain becomes damn near impossible to climb. Understand that Coffee isn’t a bad cop because he’s enthusiastically corrupt and/or vicious. He’s just a little bit of a dipshit, and his dipshittery knows no bounds.
Unfortunately, Vanessa’s 12-year-old son Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) is determined to not do that. Like the vast majority of tweens, he’s a cross between an adorable imp and a foul-mouthed sociopath. His plan, if you can call it that, is simple. He’ll give a sock full of money (yes, a sock) to Orlando (RonReaco Lee), a feared fugitive. Orlando will cripple Coffee. Vanessa will break up with Coffee, and Kareem will be happy. To quote Tony Stark, not a great plan.
As you likely expected, Kareem’s plan doesn’t quite work out. He witnesses a murder and is thrown together with Coffee, which sucks for both of them. Things suck even worse when they accidentally expose a ring of corrupt cops led by the entertainingly insane Watts (Betty Gilpin), and Coffee is framed for the killing. Now, they must dodge the bad guys, clear their names, and learn to stop loathing each other.
Time for a gut check, everyone. Do you find the notion of a swearing kid funny? Like, really, really funny? Coffee and Kareem certainly hopes so, since the main comedic concept is a ballbusting kid dropping f-bombs in every scene he appears in. This movie was intensely frustrating since every time something worked well, another thing undercut it.
Despite Kareem being a kid, Coffee & Kareem is really a buddy cop movie. Screenwriter Shane Mack clearly loves classics like 48 Hrs and Lethal Weapon. There are a couple of fatal problems with his script, and the first is the overreliance on gags about Kareem either being profane or him accusing Coffee of being a child molester. A couple of times? Sure, fine. Over and over and OVER? It becomes a great example of anti-comedy. The other issue is a misplaced focus in Mack’s script. He’s clearly a funny guy, and there are bits with his antagonist Watts and her henchmen that just kill. His side characters are consistently funny, yet they keep getting pushed to the margins while we’re forced to spend time with the unfunny main characters.
Since we’re all self-quarantining and desperate for entertainment, I don’t doubt that people will turn to Coffee and Kareem for some easy laughs. You’ll find them here, and you’ll also see the shadow of the weirder, more creative, and funnier comedy that could have been.
*The pun in that title makes me want to fine them.