The Pickup, 2025.
Directed by Tim Story.
Starring Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, Keke Palmer, Eva Longoria, Marshawn Lynch, Joe Anoa’i, Andrew Dice Clay, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Jack Kesy, Jef Holbrook, and Ray Murphy Jr.
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.
Centered on a veteran-rookie pairing of depot drivers, The Pickup director Tim Story’s (Barbershop) pairing of all-time great Eddie Murphy and modern star Pete Davidson is a rousing success bursting with comedic chemistry. The film feels like a relic of 90s action comedies that would have been a blast to see in a theater, but here it has been sadly relegated to streaming.
Russell (Murphy) is six months away from retirement and, on this day, only cares about making it home in time to his long-time wife Natalie (Eva Longoria) to celebrate their anniversary. And while being partnered with newbie and aspiring cop Travis (Davidson) is certainly annoying given his doofus behavior and one-track sexual mind, not to mention his ugly crying over feeling like a failure for flunking a police test and beginning to feel as if he will never make his family of officers proud, it’s not what might jeopardize those plans.
Soon after they hit the road for a series of pickups (saddled with a punishingly lengthy route), Russell and Travis are the targets of an on-road heist led by ambitious criminal Zoe (Keke Palmer) working with underlings (played by Jack Kesy and Ismael Cruz Cordova), attempting to hijack the armored truck and use it pose as the scheduled pickup driver of $60,000,000 at Atlantic City. It’s also a cleverly staged chase sequence, with characters jumping and hanging off of vehicles, money being tossed around to trigger dye explosions, and hilarious banter between protagonists. Travis is also not completely useless: he’s good at math, which comes into play in helping them here, although that skill has made him uncool to the rest of his law enforcement family. His proficiency in it feels abandoned by the second act, coming across as a missed opportunity to give the character further distinction, but it also doesn’t stop Pete Davidson from making the most of his material.
To elaborate, there is simply something about Eddie Murphy’s sage-like professionalism blended with his usual expected crassness and sardonic humor that perfectly clashes with the dimwitted nature of a Pete Davidson character. It’s also worth mentioning that Travis is directly responsible for the reason they are in this mess, but that face-palming stupidity should be left for viewers to discover for themselves. The point is that they are a supremely funny mismatched duo that can carry this otherwise familiar film.
All Russell and Travis have in common is the disdain they share for their demanding and idiotic boss, Clark (Andrew Dice Clay); they table verbal arguments to gang up on him over the radio. There are also other, more physical pranks in store for him, while Travis questions Russell about the reason he hasn’t left his job to start a bed and breakfast with his wife, which comes from a fear of stepping out of the daily routine he has lived by for years. When Travis isn’t doing that, he’s either saying something dumb, not understanding a dated reference Russell is making, or crudely expressing his horniness.
Yes, Travis begins to fall for and develop a romantic connection with Zoe, who not only remains hot on the trail but also amasses the leverage to blackmail him and Russell into working with her. It is preposterous on more than one level, but that stupidity is part of what gives The Pickup some of its charm. The rest comes from serviceable action that is effective enough (one wishes the filmmakers had gotten more out of the Atlantic City locale in the third act, though) for the film’s modest goals.
This is a sandbox director Tim Story (here working from a script by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider) has dabbled in over the years (but far less successful Ride Along comes to mind), although here he has struck a finer line between ludicrousness and excitement, even if it never feels as if these characters are in any real danger. The Pickup also ends on a self-aware winking joke that these two will see each other again, and it’s fun enough that a sequel would be welcome.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
