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Directed By: Benny Boom
Starring:
Donald Faison as Leo
Mike Epps as Brody
Cisco Reyes as Jesus
Next Day Air is a reprehensible film, but it’s a funny one. All of its characters are one of the following: a moron, a drug dealer, or a drug dealer that is a moron. Seriously, look at this lot of people. We have the delivery man, Leo (Faison), who delivers a package to the wrong address because he was high at the time. Then, there is Jesus (Reyes) who was waiting on the package at the right address, because it contained ten bricks of cocaine belonging to his brutal boss (Emilio Rivera). Finally, we have a trio of screwball bank robbers who receive the package that they were not expecting and open it without checking the address first. These three are Brody, Guch, and Shavoo (Epps, Wood Harris, and Omari Hardwick, respectively). When they realize what is in the package, they decide to sell it for some easy money. Even crack addicts know that selling that much stolen cocaine is not that simple.
The film, running at a slim yet appropriate runtime, is all about how these people collide in a tiny apartment complex at the end of the movie. Bullets fly, people die, and everything gets bloody very quickly. It makes you wonder how the MPAA felt that pervasive language was somehow more offensive than the violence. Apparently, it is okay for a person to get riddled with bullets, as long as they don’t say the long-feared f-word in the process. And, certainly, there are more forbidden four-letter words than there are gunshots. The dialog, though lacking a sense of smoothness, is, dare I say, charming in a weird way. It is quick-witted, snappy, and almost always funny. First-time screenwriter Blair Cobbs really doesn’t have an interesting story to tell and all of his characters are pretty bad people, so it is a testament to his ability to craft engaging dialog, and probably even more so to the talented cast delivering it, that I gave an f-word about any of it.
It’s too bad really that the overall film isn’t better than it is, because there is a lot of talent coming from every aspect of the filmmaking process. The cast, especially relative newcomers Cisco Reyes and Yasmin Deliz as the bickering yet loving Latino couple, are surprisingly impressive in the deplorable roles provided to them. I only really cared about what happened to the characters played by the aforementioned Reyes and Deliz, but I certainly did not mind watching the rest of them fumble around, proving if nothing else that drugs really do kill brain cells. Director Benny Boom and cinematographer David A. Armstrong also bring an undeniably unique visual style to the film that I must admit pleasantly surprised me. Unfortunately, the overall end product is less than the sum of its parts because the story is really quite dull and uneventful. Propelled by the stupidity of its principle characters, it fails to engage us and we cannot help but feel like we are just being dragged along for the ride.
Ultimately, Next Day Air features the establishment of a plot and then the progression of that plot until nearly everyone is dead. Because there is no hero or villain and the plot is merely a predicament rather than a story, that is how we know the film must end. After all, which of these characters deserves to walk off into the sunset in one of those obligatory cheesy happy ending? How the conclusion arrives is based on what I imagine was a game of chance, no doubt, with all of the characters on a dartboard and a desperate screenwriter tossing ten or so darts to decide which ones would live and which ones would die. It is the presence of such randomness that hurts Next Day Air so profoundly, despite its impressive technical approach. Because any ending is possible and we have no reason to side with anyone, does any of it really matter?
The film, running at a slim yet appropriate runtime, is all about how these people collide in a tiny apartment complex at the end of the movie. Bullets fly, people die, and everything gets bloody very quickly. It makes you wonder how the MPAA felt that pervasive language was somehow more offensive than the violence. Apparently, it is okay for a person to get riddled with bullets, as long as they don’t say the long-feared f-word in the process. And, certainly, there are more forbidden four-letter words than there are gunshots. The dialog, though lacking a sense of smoothness, is, dare I say, charming in a weird way. It is quick-witted, snappy, and almost always funny. First-time screenwriter Blair Cobbs really doesn’t have an interesting story to tell and all of his characters are pretty bad people, so it is a testament to his ability to craft engaging dialog, and probably even more so to the talented cast delivering it, that I gave an f-word about any of it.
It’s too bad really that the overall film isn’t better than it is, because there is a lot of talent coming from every aspect of the filmmaking process. The cast, especially relative newcomers Cisco Reyes and Yasmin Deliz as the bickering yet loving Latino couple, are surprisingly impressive in the deplorable roles provided to them. I only really cared about what happened to the characters played by the aforementioned Reyes and Deliz, but I certainly did not mind watching the rest of them fumble around, proving if nothing else that drugs really do kill brain cells. Director Benny Boom and cinematographer David A. Armstrong also bring an undeniably unique visual style to the film that I must admit pleasantly surprised me. Unfortunately, the overall end product is less than the sum of its parts because the story is really quite dull and uneventful. Propelled by the stupidity of its principle characters, it fails to engage us and we cannot help but feel like we are just being dragged along for the ride.
Ultimately, Next Day Air features the establishment of a plot and then the progression of that plot until nearly everyone is dead. Because there is no hero or villain and the plot is merely a predicament rather than a story, that is how we know the film must end. After all, which of these characters deserves to walk off into the sunset in one of those obligatory cheesy happy ending? How the conclusion arrives is based on what I imagine was a game of chance, no doubt, with all of the characters on a dartboard and a desperate screenwriter tossing ten or so darts to decide which ones would live and which ones would die. It is the presence of such randomness that hurts Next Day Air so profoundly, despite its impressive technical approach. Because any ending is possible and we have no reason to side with anyone, does any of it really matter?
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