The Pickup (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – A routine cash pickup turns into a deadly pursuit when two mismatched armored truck drivers are ambushed by ruthless criminals with plans beyond the cash.

My Take – Indeed, Eddie Murphy hasn’t exactly been in top notch film in recent years, but he will always be known as a comedic powerhouse, and Pete Davidson has shown some real promise as a performer in films like The King of Staten Island (2020) and Big Time Adolescence (2019).

However, they both didn’t deserve the material they are served in this latest from director Tim Story (Barbershop, Fantastic Four). Something that is as generic and forgettable as they come.

Written by Matt Mider and Kevin Burrows, this Prime Video release is the most recent example of highly generic and designed to be forgotten content that streaming services have been churning out nonstop.

Whist they are engaging enough thanks to the over qualified stars who sustain it over the course of a thankfully concise run time, they are more often than not quite awful as they move through the motions in predictable fashion and deliver the supposedly numbers these platforms are looking for.

In the case of this one, within the opening moments you’ll likely know whether or not this one is for you, as Pete Davidson‘s character turns from dopey teenager to gun-toting moron in seconds, all whilst wearing a security guard uniform and carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of a major bank. It’s pure cringe and might even turn you off even before you get to the appearance of Eddie Murphy‘s character, whose intro, surprisingly is much less noisy.

The story follows two armored truck guards — veteran Russell (Eddie Murphy) and rookie Travis (Pete Davidson), who are thrown in together on a particular day by circumstance and their mean-mannered boss Clark (Andrew Dice Clay). Clark sneers over Russell’s protestations that he needs to get home to his comely wife Natalie (Eva Longoria) in time to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, and assigns him an unfamiliar, long-haul route.

Worse still, he saddles him with loser Travis, who is not only a bit of an idiot, he is in irritating high spirits having spent the weekend with the beautiful Zoe (Keke Palmer). This is despite Travis having initially pulled his gun on Zoe, threatening her with arrest when he mistakes her come-on for an attempt to rob a bank.

But of course, she has other plans. So it isn’t long before their truck is hijacked and set off on a non-stop road chase by none other than Zoe and two goons, Miguel (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and Banner (Jack Kesy), she has working with her in order to achieve her ultimate goal of a casino heist worth $60 million. It’s not the chump change in the armored truck she wants, but instead it is the truck she needs to pull this off, and its drivers who are lured into her scheme.

Here, there are a few twists and turns, literally. Loyalties are blurred further into the film, the plot trying to get twisty, but it doesn’t hang together at all. But everything is just simply serviceable even if the expected hilarity from two former SNL stars in a dream pairing fails to materialize.

Mainly because, it is nearly all lame and juvenile material, comprised primarily of cheap sex jokes or tired observations about racial differences. There’s a sense of some jokes that might have worked, but it’s terminally under cooked and mostly tiresomely unfunny, and the entire scenario doesn’t help, with the slow-chase armored car ride distinctly un-cinematic, and most stunts involving a single car, driving off the road somewhere away from all other vehicles.

Director Tim Story, a veteran of the mismatched-buddy action-comedy by now with the Ride Along films, at least brings a certain level of directorial flair to the action, with some impressively shot practical stunts, especially during a high-speed freeway chase between an armored van, a fleet of acrobatic baddies, and some slow-motion exploding dye-packs.

But beyond the whizz-bang fun, it’s hard to truly care with character development so back-of-an-envelope deep as Russell’s entire personality is that he loves his wife, while Travis’ is that he’s horny.

Performance wise, Eddie Murphy surprisingly brings an average turn as he is unwisely and disappointingly placed in the role of the straight man. With his natural comedic gifts largely muzzled, it feels like he’s merely collecting a paycheck. Pete Davidson takes on the role of his comedic foil, but the script gives them so little to work with.

To make matters worse, the two have absolutely no chemistry. They don’t bounce off each other at all. They almost come across like they dislike each other in real life, but were forced to do this as part of a contract.

Add to the mix, Keke Palmer, who looks very attractive and is charismatic enough to keep things watchable, even when her character is cardboard. It’s always good to see Eva Longoria too, but she is criminally underused. In other roles, Jack Kesy, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Andrew Dice Clay and Marshawn Lynch are simply wasted. On the whole, ‘The Pickup‘ is a fitful action comedy that is not just terminally under-cooked but also tiresomely unfunny.