Next Day Air

A film starring Turk from Scrubs (Donald Faison) and Avon from The Wire (Wood Harris) as a pot-head deliveryman and incompetent criminal respectively? Yes I think that's something I might be interested in. Particularly since one of my rules in life is that anytime someone from a a show headlined by the guy who directed Garden State with the guy who played Ford Prefect in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Mos Def) I have to watch. Anyway onto the film. The story revolves around four groups:

1) Leo (Faison) a pot-head deliveryman for the titular Next Day Air, who lives with his mom (also his boss) and pretty much exists to get his next joint. In his haze he accidentally delivers a package to the wrong apartment, one that is occupied by:
2) Guch (Harris) and his two buddies, who are the very embodiment of small time criminals. They're just off a botched bank robbery (they only got out with the security tapes) and once they see the package contains 10 keys of cocaine they see it as a way to become big time drug dealers. Unfortunately the package was meant for:
3) A Puerto Rican couple down the hall who aren't exactly happy that it didn't arrive. In particular they're worried about the person who sent them the cocaine,
4) A mexican drug boss who previously killed his contact in philadelphia and likes to walk around with the Miami Slicked back hair and soul patch. He is also shown cutting out somebody's tongue in a flashback.

All of the parties spend at least part of the film chasing or trying to sell the cocaine with really limited success. They all have incredibly inflated senses of self worth, when in reality they're all pretty marginal (at best) at what they do. It's this false bravado that drives enjoyment of the film as I always like laughing at blowhards. For the majority of its running time the film maintains a loose and relaxed vibe that reminded me a bit of Out Of Sight. It loses steam during the inevitable climatic shootout as it tries to play everything straight and even has one of the characters learn a life lesson (always a mistake, particularly in a comedy), but up to that point it has an amiable charm that makes it 84 minutes go by smoothly. It's not the most profound piece of cinema ever, but its not boring and manages to keep a consistent tone throughout which is more than be said for a lot of other stuff out there (Wolverine I'm looking at you).