Druggy comedy too grim, unfunny

By Roger Moore

McClatchy Tribune

There's no honor among thieves in "Next Day Air," a dopey, bloody and downbeat black "Pineapple Express." The laughs come easily enough. But the violence and grim finale drag this coke-deal-gone-wrong comedy into a hole it can't giggle its way out of.

Inept thieves smoke weed, play video games and argue over who was supposed to do what at their last botched bank job. An equally stoned delivery man (Donald Faison of TV's "Scrubs") misreads the numbers on their door. He leaves them a box stuffed with cakes of cocaine, coke destined for the Hispanic dealer Jesus (Cisco Reyes) who lives across the hall, and next thing you know "Next Day Air" is off.

Mike Epps and Wood Harris are cousins who believe the coke "came from God." They plot how to spend the money they're going to make, grand plans for an Escalade and hookers Brody (Epps) hires by phone.

Much of the violence is comic. But all these drugs, all these thugs and all those guns are going to wind up making a bloody mess, sooner or later.

Director Benny Boom saves that "mess" for the grim, message-slapped-on third act of what had been a gritty, trippy, underwritten comedy. Boom kills his own buzz.

Movie review

"Next Day Air"

Grade: D

Starring Mike Epps, Donald Faison, Wood Harris, Cisco Reyes, Mos Def, Yasmin Deliz. Directed by Benny Boom.

Rated R (for pervasive language, drug content, some violence and brief sexuality) At metro theaters. 1 hour, 28 minutes

Bottom line: Underwritten comedy with grim finale