Keanu (2016) Review!!!

Synopsis – Friends hatch a plot to retrieve a stolen kitten by posing as drug dealers for a street gang.

My Take – This film has been on my watch-list for a while now, not just because I am an animal lover, but I have been waiting for Key and Peele to put out a movie together. They are the creators of the Comedy Central sketch comedy, Key & Peele. I have seen a couple of their segments and found them pretty funny. Their brand of comedy pokes fun at stereotypes and generic film tropes, with heavy influences from the cinema world. Their skits are often cinematic and ridiculous, but in the best kinds of way. While I do understand the skepticism to accept the transition of a show from TV to the big screen (The Sex in the City movies & Entourage made sure of that), here Key and Peele have done a good job of incorporating the same humor from their show into the film and for the most part it works. The world of television allowed them to take their style of comedy slower and to let their audience warm up and accept their brand for what it is. It may not always work, but this has been a fine basis to find out what kind of comedian one could be. With huge influences from traditional cinema, ranging from romantic comedy to 80’s action, the film covers a range of genres, providing that same ridiculous kind of comedy fans are used to. But I do wish hey pushed it even further. The humor might feel imbalances at times and it tends to dive into predictable escapades seen in films like the Hot Fuzz and Jump Street movies. The story follows two cousins Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) and Rell (Jordan Peele) living in L.A. under different lifestyles. Clarence has a family, lives in a nice house and has really taken to then suburban culture while Rell is an aspiring photographer and pot smoker who lives in a small apartment in the city. After a bad break up, a little kitten (as the movie says, “the worlds cutest cat) shows up on Rell’s doorstop.

The two bond and Rell spends much of his time either taking cat photos for a personal calendar or training him to claw up pictures of his ex. He even makes Clarence say good bye when he and Rell go to catch a movie. When the two return home, the kitten now named Keanu, has been taken in a burglary. They visit Rell’s next-door neighbor, a pot dealer Hulka (Will Forte) who reveals that a local gang was responsible for the robbery. Clarence and Rell make it to their strip club where they pose as drug dealers just to see their leader Cheddar. The two manage to put on enough of a show where Cheddar (Method Man) agrees to give them the kitten in exchange for participating in some drug deals. As a result, the two find themselves spiraling downward into a world of gang warfare, crime, and mistaken identity, all in pursuit of retrieving the adorable little Keanu. The film plays as a twist on buddy comedy films. The twist is that they are two of the “whitest” black guys around and have to act like “gangsta’s from the hood”. Their ability to go back and forth in their characters – sometimes during the same sentence – is hilarious. Their quickness and quick wit are a delight to watch. This is an understated but fun movie, and a great initial foray into feature films for Key and Peele. In keeping with their sketch comedy background, the story and the characters are humorously unrealistic, but are good for more than a few laughs. The script by Peele and Alex Rubens overplays some of the gags, but includes some smart plot twists. (Whether you see them coming or not, they are pretty enjoyable.) As far as first films go, this is a pretty good start for Key and Peele. Both guys were in full comedic force, playing off their personalities at the right moments. They work a lot with the movie’s “mistaken identity” joke, which happens to be the one long joke of the film. Everything strives on how long our heroes can keep up their charade, to which they do well. I know its hard to expect a smart plot from such kind of films, but the lack of originality is what brings the film down. They’ve clearly got the recent Jump Street vibes of undercover, role-reversing, safely crass buddy comedy lends the film its momentum.

It’s all pretty safe territory, working in scenes of familiar Key and Peele playing with the performativity of racial and masculine stereotypes, timely celebrity cameos, and making its mark as the second film of 2016 to ground extensive gags on the music of George Michael (you can practically hear Deadpool snickering in the background). There’s even a good gag reinforcing the consequences and banality of the genre’s collateral damage and property destruction, which, while still amusing, would have landed better if Hot Fuzz hadn’t neatly bagged the joke nine years prior. I would have enjoyed to have seen another side plot of some sort, but at least the movie makes up it’s thin plot by also having some fast-paced action whenever the guns are a blazing. Director Peter Atencio keeps things moving and strikes a good balance between light-hearted and serious, obviously helped by his two talented leads. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele are just as outrageously funny and infectiously sweet here as in the best of their sketch work, and they’re sensible enough to consistently own up to the sentiment of their characters to sell both the jokes and the story as a whole. Committing so unabashedly to the emotional core of their respective subplots (Key needs to learn how to unwind and find an identity outside his wife; Peele trades a failed obsessive relationship with a woman for one with a kitten) helps them feel infinitely more relatable and less rote, while gearing the film around Peele‘s fixation on his cat lends the film a tone bizarrely reminiscent of the superb Jean Reno mind-of-a-child action blowout Leon: The Professional (a feat reinforced by the slyly 90s synth-heavy musical score). The supporting cast contribute strong work as well, including intimidating posturing by Tiffany Haddish and Method Man, and amusing cameos by Luiz Guzman, Will Forte and Anna Farris. Being a cat lover, I absolutely loved the kitten in this film! Whoever trained this bunch of seven cats who play our titular lead deserves an applause. On the whole, ‘Keanu’ is an enjoyable comedy and a decent foray from skit to the big screen for the comedic duo.