HelpmedevelopphysicalliteracyandIwillbe
Myloveofmovement
startsnow.
A12 O THE GLOBE AND MAIL| FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2020
FILMFRIDAY REVIEWS | OPINION| PUZZLES | WEATHER
| NEWSI
confess: When I first read Net-
flix’s description of its new ac-
tion-comedyCoffee & Kareem,I
felt like I had stumbled upon a re-
jectedTropic Thunderjoke: “A De-
troit cop reluctantly teams with
his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son to
clear his name and take down the
city’s most ruthless criminal.” It
sounded, like a good-sized por-
tion of the streaming giant’s oth-
er 2020 fare, akin to an elevator
pitch made at the very bottom of
the shaft – a desperate mishmash
ofKindergarten Copand a dozen
other listless buddy-cop movies,
but lazily engineered to appeal to
some indecipherable demo-
graphic spat up courtesy of Net-
flix’s audience algorithm.
The first 15 minutes ofCoffee &
Kareemsupport such cynical sus-
picions, as if director Michael
Dowse and screenwriter Shane
Mack were working off a story-
board filled not with mapped-out
scenes, but Post-It Notes display-
ing tropes like “filthy-mouthed
kid,” “gangsta rap” and “in fla-
grante delicto” (though you might
wonder if that last concept was
spelled out in more crass terms).
Yet after the filmmakers clear
their throats and take a look
around to see if any Netflix execs
are watching,Coffee & Kareembe-
gins to become at least mildly di-
verting, and even a bit subver-
sive. Slowly, but not always confi-
dently, Dowse and Mack begin to
upend obligations of the struc-
ture, play fast and loose with thelimits of good taste and wind up
with, while far from a comedic
masterpiece, an enjoyably reck-
less piece of vulgar entertain-
ment.
The story doesn’t go much be-
yond that aforementioned log-
line: Disgraced Detroit cop James
Coffee (a mustachioed Ed Helms,
in full Andy Bernard-in-The Office
mode) is forced to embark on a
citywide adventure with his girlf-
riend’s troublesome 12-year-old
son (Terrence Little Gardenhigh)- not 11 as Netflix originally an-
nounced; I guess they decided he
needed to be aged up a little in
order to justify the truly disgust-
ing filth flowing from his mouth –
to take down a drug lord. Along
the way, the pair manage to im-
peril the lives of everyone from
Kareem’s mother (Taraji P. Hen-
son) to his police colleagues (Da-
vid Alan Grier, Betty Gilpin) to a
group of French-Canadian traf-
fickers (sure, why not?).
It could have all been so rote
and juvenile and obvious, and
parts do rather obviously chase
that kids-say-the-darndest-things
high of last summer’sGood Boys.
But the Canadian director Dowse
manages to do what he couldn’t
manage with his last for-hire Hol-
lywood project, 2019’s similarlybuddy-cop shoot-’em-upStuber.
He squishes the genre between
his fingers, and takes whatever
colourful narrative and aesthetic
goo that flows out and flings it
right back at the screen. That
metaphor may sound laboured,
but it’s as accurate a description
as to Dowse’s mighty, but only 70-
per-cent successful, work here.
Coffee & Kareemis messy, but it’s
an interesting sort of gross chaos.
So, while the filmmaker could
have skated away with having a
trio of gangbangers as his villains,
he decided (maybe in concert
with screenwriter Mack, maybe
not) to have the men constantly
engage with their own stereo-
types. Ditto the damsel-in-dis-
tress routine Henson seems ini-
tially saddled with, and the un-
easy partnership chemistry be-
tween Gardenhigh and Helms
(the latter far from hisHangover
trilogy box-office glory days, but
hey, who isn’t far from grace right
about now?).
Mostly, though, it’s appreciat-
ed how Dowse gleefully throws a
wrench into the mechanics of the
plot, coming up with a huh-okay-
I’ll-bite second-act twist that fur-
ther reveals Gilpin as this spring’s
MVP of projects that don’t neces-
sarily deserve her (here’s looking
at you,The Hunt). Then, to just
further muck things about,
Dowse and his crew cover the en-
tire movie in a slick gloss of grim
and guts – a neat middle finger to
ostensible expectations. All that,
and there’s a decentBad Lieuten-
ant: Port of Call New Orleansjoke,
too. These days, that’s just
enough to get a pass.Coffee&Kareemisavailableto
streamonNetflixstartingAprilBuddy-coppicisadouble-doubleofvulgartrouble
Canadiandirector
MichaelDowseadds
subversivetwisttoan
oldformula,making
foranenjoyably
recklesspieceoffun
BARRY
HERTZ
REVIEWCoffee & Kareem
CLASSIFICATION:N/A;88MINUTES
DirectedbyMichaelDowse
WrittenbyShaneMack
StarringEdHelms,TarajiP.Henson
andBettyGilpin
★★★
From left, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Little Gardenhigh and Ed Helms appear in Coffee & Kareem,
an action-comedy film that plays fast and loose with the limits of good taste.I
f audiences cannot enter theat-
res, then the theatres will enter
audiences’ homes. These past
few weeks, as cinemas have shut-
tered and distributors have
pulled titles indefinitely, a range
of innovative alternatives have
sprung up for the hungry, and
likely very-in-need-of-distrac-
tion, moviegoer.
At Toronto’s TIFF Bell Light-
box, the organization is partner-
ing with Canadian streamer
Crave to offer a series of “Stay-at-
Home Cinema” programming,
which kicked off this past Friday
with a screening ofThe Princess
Bride, preceded by a conversation
between that film’s star Mandy
Patinkin and TIFF artistic director
and co-head Cameron Bailey,
which was broadcast over Insta-
gram. Toronto’s Hot Docs Ted
Rogers Cinema has launched
“Hot Docs at Home,” aiming to
highlight the wealth of doc titles
available for home viewing. And
now some of the country’s inde-
pendent cinemas have banded
together with U.S. indie distribu-
tor Kino Lorber for “Kino Mar-
quee,” a series of virtual screen-
ing rooms that allow viewers to
digitally rent a new release for
five days, with the profit being
split between the exhibitor and
distributor.
Intended as a “lifeline” for art-
house cinemas to stay in business
as the COVID-19 crisis stretches
on, Kino Marquee’s initiative is
certainly starting strong, kicking
off with the premiere of the wild,
head-spinning festival favourite
Bacarau.
The film features the return of
the team behind the equally wild
(but overlong) TIFF 2016 selec-
tionAquarius– both ambitious
stews of genre and politics. Direc-
tors Kleber Mendonca Filho and
Juliano Dornelles open their new
film by zooming in on the tiny
Brazilian village of Bacurau from
the vast emptiness of outer space- a fitting introduction, given that
the hamlet is about to be literally
wiped off the map by a group of
American and German mercenar-
ies who’ve paid for the privilege.
Or something like that – the
exact plot mechanics of the film
and its villains, led by a delight-
fully weird Udo Kier, are muddy,
though the filmmakers also nev-
er pretend to be interested in
spelling out every beat and twist,
as did its genre cousinThe Hunt
when it was released last month.
Instead,Bacurauis a fiery anti-
colonialism polemic with so
much on its mind that you’ll like-
ly come out of it feeling as dazed
as the titular village’s people, who
frequently ingest psychotropic
drugs. Part siege movie, part rural
drama, part gore-soaked freak-
out,Bacurauis the one instance
where it’s the destination, not the
journey, that matters. And if that
end point right now happens to
be your living room, then so be it.BacurauisavailabletoviewonKino
MarqueeviatheFoxTheatrefrom
April3-9,andadditionaltheatres
acrossthecountrythroughoutApril.
Formoreinformation,visit
kinolorber.comWildgenre-hopper’sinnovativedigitalrelease
maybethelifelineindiecinemasneedrightnow
BARRY HERTZ
REVIEWBacurau
CLASSIFICATION:R;131MINUTES
WrittenanddirectedbyJuliano
DornellesandKleberMendonca
Filho
StarringBarbaraColen,SoniaBraga
andUdoKier
★★★½
Barbara Colen appears in Bacurau, a film set in a tiny Brazilian village
threatened by American and German mercenaries.
A
fascinating, frequently angry and occasionally dark-
ly funny documentary about the history-altering ef-
fects of ... gerrymandering? Yes, the least sexy word
in politics is the focus of Chris Durrance and Barak
Goodman’s important (if not exactly essential) new filmSlay
the Dragon, which takes the bone-dry concept of cutting up a
U.S. state map to represent voter districts and uses it to ex-
plore flagrant abuses within the American political system.
The sleazy electoral tactic, used
by Democrats and Republicans
alike over the course of U.S. histo-
ry but now firmly a weapon of the
American right, is one that might
be slightly too obtuse for most au-
diences to get a grip on, but Dur-
rance and Goodman neatly, if
sometimes slowly, lay the issue
out with the skill of seasoned doc-
umentarians and the ferocity of
citizens who realize they’ve been
duped. Yet despite the obvious
righteousness of the filmmakers’
cause, a good portion ofSlay the
Dragonfeels listless, and this close
to wading into the flabbier territory of a60 Minutessegment in
need of serious editing.
There may be larger things in the world to think about right
now – and even uttering the word “gerrymandering” sends a
cold shiver of pure blah down my spine – but asSlay the Dragon
mostly proves, the system will never right itself until the elec-
torate collectively pushes for action. Today, and tomorrow.SlaytheDragonisavailableApril3ondemandGerrymanderingdoc
turnspolitics’leastsexy
wordintoacridecoeur
BARRY HERTZREVIEWSlay the Dragon
CLASSIFICATION:PG;101MINUTESDirectedbyChrisDurranceandBarakGoodman
★★★Durranceand
Goodmanneatly,if
sometimesslowly,
laytheissueout
withtheskillof
seasoned
documentariansand
theferocityof
citizenswhorealize
they’ve been duped.