Staff Member
Born from the unoriginal premise of two everymen having to pretend to be hardened criminals, the jokes that the movie “Keanu” goes for are high-risk with little reward.
The movie stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, best known for their comedy central series “Key & Peele,” in which the two biracial men deconstruct racial politics, struggles with racial identity, social issues, and film tropes, with their trademark style, timing, repartee, and subversion of expectations.
This style is felt in “Keanu,” which reads like a giant “Key & Peele” sketch.
Entire minutes of this movie are betted on getting a laugh from the audience. The two main characters will engage in a 45-second plus back-and-forth argument repeating the same things to each other in increasingly modulated voices all in the hopes that they will get a laugh at the end of it.
The movie is full of examples of this, cringe humor, and sight gags that will likely be divisive. In my case, I did not laugh more often than not, however, others in the audience loved every bit. In fact, the rest of the movie is arguably filler until the next joke, which is forgivable in a 3-minute sketch but harder to swallow in a 98-minute film.
The saving grace of this film that prevents it from being an outright forgettable movie is the developed chemistry of Key and Peele.
“Keanu” is a comedy. There may be action, attempts at drama and even romance, but the tone of the film remains largely comedic.
The premise of the film is in the wake of a shootout at a drug lab performed by two Matrix-esque killers called the Allentown Boys (also played by Key and Peele), the drug lord’s cat runs away to the house of main character Rell (played by Peele, a heartbroken man who takes a shine to the cat and names him Keanu.) Rell’s cousin Clarence (played by Key), a tepid, married man who routinely comes to cheer up Rell, accepts the cat as therapeutic for Rell.
When Rell’s house is mistakenly raided instead of his drug dealer neighbor and Keanu is taken, Rell and Clarence decide to pose as drug dealers and later the Allentown Boys to get Keanu back. Hilarity ensues.
The impetus of the film is absurd, no two people in their right mind would become accomplices to crimes, perform some of their own and cheat death many times just to get a kitten back. Therein lies another problem of the film: the atmosphere.
Similar to other R-rated comedies, the main characters engage in their awkward undercover behavior and act like buffoons, while the rest of the criminal characters oblivious to their behavior, act like they are in a straight-crime thriller.
This seems to be a common trend of R-rated comedies as of late, with films such as “Get Hard,” “Let’s be Cops” and “22 Jump Street” running similar veins. If you accept this formula and are also able to accept the lack of realism that comes with it, than this film should not bother you as much as it did me.
However, the main duo’s timing, improvisations and almost psychic link the two have developed is very evident in this movie and are what turn and a potentially underwhelming and embarrassing script into a potentially killer one. With all that said, “Keanu” was a forgettable, awkward, absurd, hollow, R-Rated popcorn comedy. If that’s what you are looking for, then great.
Otherwise, I recommend simply watching “Key & Peele” sketches on YouTube, they are more humorous, rewarding and thought-provoking than this movie, and are what “Keanu” should have been.
I award “Keanu” 2 1/2 out of 5 hairballs.
