Once upon a time, movie houses were full of all sorts of pictures โ big pictures, little pictures, A pictures, B pictures, smart pictures, silly pictures. Nowadays, with the film business contracting around blockbusters, the little pictures, the B pictures and the silly pictures have deserted the theaters for television which, in its streaming multiplicity, has room to absorb them. The current theatrical market can only bear so many Adam Sandler movies, but Netflix is happy to show as many as he wants to make.
When it comes to critical attention, these features will often fall through the cracks, like a body in a jurisdictional dispute between the police and sheriffโs departments, all the easier as their caseloads are already too heavy and maybe this one doesnโt seem worth the time. Still, sometimes something calls the reviewerโs name, and the combination of Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, Eva Longoria and Keke Palmer in โThe Pickup,โ a heist comedy premiering Wednesday on Prime Video, at least looked promising. That it is at once implausible, overcomplicated and predictable does not, after all, set it apart from most caper films. Technically, itโs television, but itโs also a movie โ or perhaps itโs a movie, but also television? Anyway, I looked.
Murphy and Davidson, who both became stars as very young cast members of โSaturday Night Liveโ โ Murphy, often credited with having kept the series alive, joined at 19, Davidson at 20 โ play Russell and Travis, respectively, security guards who work for an armored car company, picking up bags of money from around northern New Jersey and bringing them to the bank. Russell is a legend around the office, where he nevertheless has to take guff from his boss (Andrew Dice Clay as, essentially, Andrew Dice Clay). Travis is a well-meaning screwup who comes from a family of cops but canโt get a place on the police force. (He is good with math, though, which will come in handy when math needs to be done.)
The film takes place on the day of Russellโs 25th wedding anniversary; after a quarter century his wife, Natalie (Longoria), doesnโt seem at all tired of him, though she is a little tired of his job. (There is talk of opening a โsweet little bed and breakfastโ and not the โairโ sort.) Anxious to finish his shift in time for a celebratory dinner, he finds himself teamed with Travis, โthe annoying new kid,โ a chatterbox who conversely reveres Russell as a god.
We have earlier seen Travis pull a gun on Zoe (Keke Palmer), under the impression she was attempting to rob a bank. (She handed him a note with her phone number on it, which he didnโt bother to read.) Nevertheless, she might as well have had โDanger,โ written in lipstick on her forehead. Although Travis, overwhelmed by the attention sheโs paying him, is too smitten to see it. You will not be fooled, however, and will be less than surprised when she appears with a couple of thugs โ Jack Kesy, as Banner, is the movieโs only real villain โ on a stretch of country road to commandeer the armored car.
A low-key Murphy, whose โBeverly Hills Cop: Axel Fโ sequel was released straight-to-streaming by Netflix last year, is the responsible adult here. Davidson, the Jerry Lewis to his Dean Martin, portrays a sentimentalized version of the idiots he sometimes plays. The substance of their more substantial conversations, when they have them, is change.
Russell: โIโm not retiring, Iโm moving on to a new career.โ
Travis: โYouโre pivoting. This late? โฆ Your generation canโt pivot.โ
Written by Matt Mider and Kevin Burrows and directed by Tim Story (โBarbershop,โ โRide Alongโ), with the 20th century wipes and countdown clocks and stylized titles no 21st century heist film is allowed to avoid, โThe Pickupโ makes mathematical sense even as real-world sense eludes it, and generates some actual tension on the way to its inevitable happy ending. Many of its 94 minutes are occupied with well-mounted car chases, stunts and gunfights, obviating the need for character development, past the traditional foes-become-friends dynamic. But the cast does not treat the material with contempt, and though no one is stretching any harder than a house cat waking from a nap, theyโre pros and pretend not to notice when the film gets ridiculous or runs into a plot hole. Youโll possibly notice, but may not mind.
