Next Day Air Review
This movie is currently at 17% on Rottentomatoes.com, with the critical consensus “Rife with half-baked jokes and excessive violence, Next Day Air is an uninspired stoner comedy.”
I didn’t have that experience at all.
More importantly the bulk of the audience also didn’t seem to be having that experience.
They laughed. A LOT. Throughout. Loud enough that you couldn’t hear lines of dialogue.
In short, this movie totally killed at a press screening (which includes a lot of random regular people that aren’t press), and this screening was packed.
And I felt like my experience reflected that of the audience, I laughed throughout this movie.
Just to give an idea of the plot of Next Day Air, it’s about a package of cocaine accidentally delivered to the wrong address, leading to various groups of low-lifes trying to snag it. Think Snatch, only more comic, all the time.
Probable Reasons Critics Didn’t Like It
-Characters are kind stereotypical (but in my opinion not much worse than your average movie)
-Depicts black people as pretty much all drug dealers and crooks. But I think that argument is silly, because EVERYONE is a drug dealer/crook in this movie.
-It’s super violent. I think a lot of that criticism comes from ending, which is a massive shootout. But in a movie about these types of criminal characters, how many other ways could it end? And even the shootout has comical portions.
-The humor is sometimes lowbrow.
Why I Really Enjoyed It
-I thought the tone and the fast-pace, combined with some snappy editing, made it a really fun movie. I was reminded of funnier portions of the first half of Lucky Number Slevin.
-There’s a ton of funny scenes. For example, there’s some guy on the couch, like the guy in Half Baked, who just stays there throughout the movie. Neither of the characters who live in the apartment know who he is. He sleeps with a machine gun, so they can’t get him to leave either.
-A Hispanic gang henchman, Jesus, is so anxious he practices threatening people in front of the mirror
-In one scene the characters speak in code about cocaine over the phone, the code is cocaine equals sexy women, and while one character talks about it his girlfriend is waking up behind him.
-Mos Def shows up for a little while in it, and does his usual oddball schtick effectively.
Cousin Eddie!