Movie review: 'Next Day Air'

Donald Faison (Credit: Adam L. Taylor/Summit)

2 stars (out of four)

Stoner runs afoul of bad men with guns: It worked (commercially) for the white boys of “Pineapple Express,” why not for the African-American and Latino ensemble of “Next Day Air”? 

Donald Faison plays a Philadelphia courier whose chronic use of the chronic causes him to drop a big box of cocaine at the door of the wrong apartment. The cokehound hood (Cisco Reyes) under the thumb of Mr. Big (Emilio Rivera) realizes he’s a dead man unless he retrieves the shipment, now in the hands of the astonished dealers portrayed by Mike Epps and Wood Harris.

After a tangle of flashbacks a la Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” or “Rocknrolla,” first-time screenwriter Blair Cobbs confines the film to a clammy apartment, photographed by David A. Armstrong with the putridity he brought to “Saw.” “Next Day Air” is sort of bracing, though it isn’t very good: Its total lack of dramatic and comic bearings, to say nothing of a point, keeps you wondering about the next fatality, in a half-interested way.

This odd combination of caper and bloodbath, directed by Benny Boom in a style averse to any kind of comedy, looks like a lark from the ads, which are dominated by the “Scrubs”-friendly image of Faison, front and center next to Mos Def (whose part seems to have been truncated in the final edit). But the scenes of cigar-burn torture, tongue-removal and various assorted killings may lead audiences to wonder if they’ve been baited-and-switched.

One scene hints at the movie that should’ve been. It features Faison’s Leo and a fellow courier, played by Def. Nothing much happens; behind a delivery truck the men smoke, complain, mutter and smoke some more, before they—and the film—get back to the grim business at hand. It’s the funniest two minutes in “Next Day Air.” Someone should write a script for these guys, a better one than this one.

mjphillips@tribune.com

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