Hockey fans are a dime a dozen where I reside, so much so that I can seemingly only talk to my friends on the East Coast about the sport. Two of them are Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals fans respectively. Before my screening of the film that will be under dissection, the Pens and Caps were facing off in game two of their playoff series. While my Caps friend was cheering and ready to embrace being up two games to nil, one of my many, many Pittsburgh friends was ranting about how his team is done and he doesn’t care about hockey anymore. Things heated up when said friend started assaulting the Caps friend spouting out things like “He’s only been a fan for a week!” and generally making fun of the guy for praising Alexander Ovechkin. During all of this chaos, I could be seen laughing my bunions off while I patiently waited for the film to start. As I reassured him the Pens still have a shot, he then told me it was easy for me as my team is giving the Detroit Red Wings a run for their money. Now, unlike some other online journalist I did turn my phone off as the lights dimmed and the ranting evolved into an argument about the merits of Terminator 2.
I started with that little story because that’s that’s the only time I laughed in the theater for Next Day Air, a film which has taken the reins from Miss March as worst of the year. Where that monstrosity sort of knew it was bad but didn’t do anything to help, Next Day Air isn’t exactly sure what it is. It starts off like Smokin’ Aces, devolves into Clerks in da Hood before finally becoming Reservoir Dogs. There isn’t one likable character in this movie which is a shame because the talent of Wood Harris is wasted. He does the best with what he can, and seemingly he’s the only one trying to make this anywhere near non-terrible. Furthermore the script is very, very bad with bland humor that’s been done much better in much much better films. Things just happen with no rhyme or reason other than to be there. For instance a storage worker steals money from Shavoo (Omari Hardwick). Why? Was he broke? Just thought it would be fun? This advances the story how?
Benny Boom is the man responsible for directing this and, along with Blair Cobbs, is taking his first shot at a feature; this reeks of amateur. Cobbs’ script feels not only like a first draft, but fell into the trap of having scenes that he thought were hilarious but did nothing for the film. There’s no direction for the story other than to test the audience’s endurance. This falls into the lap of Benny Boom whose music videos really aren’t half bad. Boom wants to make Friday 2009 but he failed to understand why that film worked and instead opts for being criminally retarded. He also borrows heavily from Snatch in terms of his style but again seemed to have just watched it and thought “Dis da bomb, yo!” It’s all fine and dandy for a director to take old ideas or films and put his stamp on them, but they have to actually gel together. I won’t condemn either Boom or Cobbs since this was their first effort, but they have a ton of things to learn about how to actually write and direct a feature (which is why I haven’t been as cruel as I could be.)
They’re not helped at all by the cast they have, even the aforementioned Wood Harris. For him and Donald Faison it’s not their fault - they have no idea how to act as their characters. Faison gets it the worst though, as the film establishes him as the main guy to follow and he’s barely even in the movie. Yes, we’re told to follow this character who narrates the opening and then drops out five minutes later, only to come back for the grand finale. Even worse is Yasmin Deliz, who while being the best-looking thing in the movie is also the biggest annoyance. Four men are bound and gagged during the course of this thing, but they don’t have the decency to give it to Deliz who is up there with Trevor Moore and Thomas Lennon for “Most Annoying of the Year”. Cisco Reyes is absolutely horrible and plays up every Mexican stereotype, but Emilio Rivera might be the worst offender. Not only is a ‘teepical’ Latin mob boss, Emilio is literally reading lines into the camera devoid of any acting. He’s less threatening than Alana from “That’s So Raven” and tends to think he’s on some other planet. The rest of the participants that include Mike Epps and Darius McCrary are here to just stand around and collect paychecks.
I went into Next Day Air mostly due to Wood Harris, yet I did expect to be entertained with a fun comedy. Instead we’re left with easily the worst picture of the year and should be avoided by everyone. There’s no appeal here and the one half-chuckle I had isn’t enough to even warrant a rental. Maybe it was my fault for expecting this film to actually entertain than the fault of the movie for being an outright piece of horse manure.
