Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise (on an old 2014 Moto G)

20th Century Fox

AUSTIN, Texas—July has barely gotten underway, but we have finally reached peak 2019. This weekend, a film whose entire premise hinges unironically on the modern app-driven gig economy will hit theaters.

"Uber hates this movie, by the way," comedian Kumail Nanjiani said after a crowd of RTX Austin 2019 attendees just watched his ridesharing-meets-'80s-buddy-cop flick, Stuber. "It's about a guy who kidnaps someone in an Uber—it's like if Titanic was made for Carnival cruise ships."

If hearing "Uber" and "movie" that close together immediately gives you chills, don't fret: Stuber proves to be less of a marketing grab than Stranger Things 3. The ubiquitous modern taxi company had no direct involvement even though it had a role to play, says Director Michael Dowse. That's because of the Kleenex principle: using a fake brand would take people out of the film immediately.

So to avoid getting sued for libel, the Stuber team used Uber properly on-screen, which includes rating drivers, setting destinations, and participating in Uber pools (all done without the real interface). Using that foundation, the filmmakers built perhaps the year's most unexpected, over-the-top comedy. And if you need further proof that things were driven by comedy and not commercialism, look to the film's main vehicle—a Nissan Leaf. The gas-less EV just might end up engulfed in flames after a few epic car chases.

"With the Nissan Leaf, we just added a line in ADR [Automated Dialog Replacement, or dubbing]," Nanjiani says. "'No, how did it explode?! It must've been the propane!'—OK, now Nissan is totally cool with it."

Prepare to be Stubified

In Stuber, Stu (Nanjiani) works at a sporting goods store and drives for Uber part-time so he can make a little nest egg to help/impress Becca (Betty Gilpin, GLOW). She's the woman he loves who, naturally, views him as a platonic shoulder to cry on. His bro-y boss Richie (Jimmy Tatro, American Vandal) finds the whole arrangement hilarious and opts for Stu rides whenever possible. He even bestows a nickname upon his favorite employee: Stu-ber. (Editor's note: I know, I know. It gets better. Stay with us.)

Elsewhere, Vic (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy and Blade Runner 2049) works for the LAPD and has been stalling out on his attempts to apprehend the heroin dealer who took out his partner once upon a time. That pursuit has estranged Vic from his daughter Nicole's (Natalie Morales) burgeoning art career—he's been so absent that he scheduled much-needed Lasik on the same day as the opening of her first gallery show.

So, to ensure her father makes the show, Nicole takes her dad's phone and installs Uber (a guy shouldn't drive post-Lasik, after all). But before Vic sets the gallery as his first rideshare destination, he gets a tip about one more big product drop involving his white-whale heroin dealer. Whatever poor sharing-economy sap accepts this gig will have more than they bargained for—and unfortunately, that sap is mild-mannered Stu.

"Oh, I get it," Stu says as they begin their ridesharing experience. "Let me drive you to all the Sarah Connors in the city."

A film that knows what it is (and offers nothing more)

Though it hinges on this very modern conceit, Stuber absolutely feels like a throwback: a buddy comedy that could've existed in the '80s, '90s, or early 2000s. These kinds of movies increasingly head straight to streaming or frankly don't exist given economic realities in the film industry (nowadays, if you don't swing for the critical adoration of Moonlight or the box office of Avengers, why bother?). Every once in a while, an indie studio will land on a movie that feels fresh—Booksmart from Annapurna delivered a one last hurrah high-school buddy comedy from a woman's perspective, for instance—but Stuber represents a rarity. In an era of sequels, remakes, and adaptations galore, 20th Century Fox has made an original studio comedy. That feels worth championing—even if the film borrows heavily from all the buddy movies that came before.

Stuber's reverence for the formula has its pros and cons. On the con-side, that means Stuber has no real female characters of substance despite casting three likable actors (Morales, Gilpin, and Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino) in its three largest female roles. An overwhelming amount of Stuber focuses solely on Vic and Stu, and they simply don't have much to do outside of interacting with each other.

For any Neil deGrasse Tyson-like filmgoers who obsess over a logic gap or factual inaccuracy to the point of ruining a filmgoing experience, Stuber may not be for you, either. Why wouldn't Stu just cancel the ride, you ask? Well, he fears that dropping below four stars would damage his ability to save up enough to help Becca open a spin studio. The contrivances don't stop there.

That said, Stuber delivers a surprising amount of fun. It starts with the undeniable chemistry between Nanjiani and Bautista, who prove to be the kind of pairing you'd happily watch adapt a variety of film genres (see also: Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, Kevin Hart and The Rock, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, etc.).

"The moment you got them in the same room, it was automatic within a minute of them being in the same frame," Dowse says. "Kumail obviously lends credence to the action; Dave lends credence to the comedy." He wouldn't rule out a sequel or an entirely different movie starring the budding comedy duo.

Throughout Stuber, Bautista's physical presence easily plays off Nanjiani's deadpan, self-deprecating, and intellectual comedy stylings. (Dowse says the script itself made everyone laugh, but the filmmakers left plenty of set time for improvisation, too: "You have as many alts [alternate takes] as you can in the edit suite, and you'll have a funnier film. It's mathematics.") Some of the film's best moments come from watching the duo approach the same task in dramatically different ways. Nanjiani's very millennial methods of bad-guy interrogation might be Stuber's best overall bit, and the two actors' opposite fighting philosophies come to a head in perhaps the most delightful battle scene in a film this year.

Ka-blammo

Speaking of which, Stuber has a surprising amount of set pieces for a movie that, at times, can feel like Harold and Kumar (Who's A Cop) Go To White Castle. Bautista obviously thrives in this aspect, and the film's big bad is played by renowned stunt choreographer Iko Uwais. That means Stuber offers a higher caliber of fight sequence than its comedic predecessors. From car chases leveraging Stu's leased Nissan Leaf to shootouts at the veterinarian's office, Stuber never entirely forgets its comedic center even when its action-movie tendencies come front and center.

Both Bautista and Uwais did their own stunts. "I'm not Tom Cruise or Jackie Chan—I'll be in my trailer," Nanjiani says. "You can do the shit, then I'll come in and just yell, 'Ahhhh!' If I can help it, I'll never do a stunt in my life."

You may hear about Stuber's plot or catch the trailer and think, "We've done this before, right?" From Midnight Run to 22 Jump Street to Men in Black, film history is littered with unlikely mismatched pairs coming together to square off against evil.

But not all of those films have the obvious thought and care Stuber displays. When the film has a cop commandeer a person of color's car or an unlikely romance blossom way too quickly, the movie acknowledges such things directly to the audience (usually through a Nanjiani aside). And though it utilizes that familiar, dated machismo (down to the underwritten female characters) and violence of its genre, Stuber does so side by side with light commentary about embracing your emotions, admitting you need help, or defining masculinity outside a chiseled Bautista-shaped box.

Stuber won't win at the Oscars or dominate the box office (good luck hitting theaters a week before The Lion King). But a delightful popcorn movie that can reliably deliver laughs and land a few surprises feels far too rare nowadays. Maybe the film's name could be a bit stronger for promotion's sake, but I wouldn't change anything else about this perfectly imperfect B movie. Marketing clearly hasn't been a priority for Stuber anyway.

Stuber premiered at SXSW 2019 and arrives in theaters this weekend.

Listing image by 20th Century Fox