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(More customer reviews)"Next Day Air" is a convoluted but engrossing dark comedy that has the conviction to make gangsters and drug dealers seem like people you would want to root for. It's a tale of hapless people in an equally hapless situation, and yet director Benny Boom and writer Blair Cobbs aren't so melodramatic that they fail to see the humor in it all; many moments are genuinely funny, at times in that blatant screwball way, at other times in that underhanded way that makes you think about what was said and by whom. The clever structure helps a great deal, every scene so carefully paced that the whole thing runs like clockwork. Strange, the precision that went into a screenplay about a scenario that was handled very imprecisely. It's quite possible that this is an intentional display of cinematic irony, which is good because it reveals an intelligence films like this tend to lack.
The plot, essentially, is about a drug deal gone wrong. Using an ordinary delivery service modeled after UPS or Fed-Ex, a ruthless drug lord from Calexico, California named Bodega (Emilio Rivera) ships ten bricks of high-quality cocaine to Philadelphia. It was supposed to be delivered to Jesus (Cisco Reyes) and his girlfriend, Chita (Yasmin Deliz), but a potheaded delivery man named Leo (Donald Faison) accidentally drops it off at the apartment further down the hall. It's now in the possession of three inept bank robbers: Brody (Mike Epps), Guch (Wood Harris), and Hassie (Malik Barnhardt). While Hassie spends most of the film asleep on the couch, Brody and Guch quickly decide to get rich off the bricks by selling them to Brody's cousin, Shavoo (Omari Hardwick). Shavoo, unfortunately, is unaware that his secret stash of money has been stolen.
As you can see, this story involves a lot of people, and their personal histories are, to varying degrees, interwoven all throughout. Leo is a slacker who doesn't take his job very seriously, not caring a bit for boxes marked as fragile. He's inches away from being fired by his boss, who just happens to be his mother (Debbie Allen). He knows for a fact that his co-worker and friend, Eric (Mos Def), actively steals merchandise from the very boxes he delivers. Jesus and Chita bicker like immature teenagers, almost as if they were already married. It's a complex, multilayered film, yet it never loses sight of the story or the characters. This is especially important as we approach the final act, at which point Bodega comes to Philadelphia, Jesus and Chita search for Leo, and Brody, Guch, and Shavoo begin distrusting one another. Eventually, nine people find themselves in the same small apartment, and of those nine, seven are armed and dangerous.
One of the film's best scenes may seem like an obvious gimmick, but it works just the same. Brody calls Shavoo to tell him about the ten bricks. Subtitles suddenly appear, translating slang-heavy ghetto talk into formal English. I found myself laughing, probably because that scene forced me to face a cultural gap head on; had there been no subtitles, I most likely would not have understood a thing they were saying. The rest of the film is linguistically solid, if a little in-your-face with obscene references to Oedipus. Honestly, the four-letter dialogue in this movie none too subtle--if the filmmakers had put a dollar amount on each word, the actors would have probably earned more at the end of the shoot than the total of their salaries.
In spite of this, there are specific passages of dialogue that can actually make the audience think, if only for a moment or two. Take, for example, an ongoing argument between Brody and Guch about the nature of family; while Brody is convinced that Shavoo is acting honestly, Guch believes that no one, not even close family members, can be trusted. His point hits home near the end of the film, at which point his priorities are made abundantly clear. And then there's Shavoo, who asserts, "If it ain't worth dying for, you don't want to be in it." He remembers that line much later on, and considering what has happened and who it happened to, it's unclear whether or not he still believes this to be true.
While I'm hard pressed to say that "Next Day Air" is a message movie, there is the sense that something more lurks beneath the zany surface, and whatever that something is, it can do more for an audience than just smack them upside the head with crude dialogue, a lot of drug use, and bloody shootouts. I suspect most of the credit goes to the carefully plotted screenplay, which successfully interweaves multiple storylines without getting them hopelessly confused with one another. I find it both amazing and funny that such a chaotic story achieved its goals because of an organized script. That may, in fact, be the funniest thing about this movie (although I laughed pretty hard at a scene featuring Jesus practicing his stick-up routine in front of a mirror, each time using a bigger gun). Clearly, "Next Day Air" is a lot smarter than it lets on.
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Next Day Air (2009)No description available for this title.Item Type: DVD MovieItem Rating: RStreet Date: 09/15/09Wide Screen: yesDirector Cut: noSpecial Edition: noLanguage: ENGLISHForeign Film: noSubtitles: noDubbed: noFull Frame: noRe-Release: noPackaging: Sleeve
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