Review: KEANU

KEANU
(COMEDY/ACTION)
2.5 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Peter Antencio
Starring: Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Tiffany Haddish, Method Man, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Jason Mitchell, Jamar Malachai Neighbors, Will Forte, Luis Guzman, Nia Long
Rated R for violence, language throughout, drug use and sexuality/nudity.
98 minutes
Verdict: While uneven and not quite on par with their TV work, the inaugural feature film effort from Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele and Peter Atencio is a funny and absurd crime comedy centering around an adorable kitten.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN KEANU IF YOU LIKED:
Key and Peele  (TV series, 2012-2015)
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS  (2008)
21 JUMP STREET  (2012)
THE HANGOVER  (2009)
TED  (2012)
Following an excellent run with their truly absurd but often very astute Comedy Central series Key and Peele, which concluded last September, the comedy team of Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key with director Peter Atencio are reunited in this similarly absurd feature film, written by Peele with fellow Key and Peele writer, Alex Rubens.  Centering around a pair of hapless suburbanites infiltrating the Los Angeles gang scene in order to get their stolen kitten back, the premise has a lot of promise, but despite having mastered TV sketch comedy, their inaugural big screen feature film proves more rickety.  The story and characters are not unlike the sort that might appear in one of their TV skits, but the results are uneven and inconsistent in the feature format.  Even as such, they derive a lot of mileage from the delightfully daft premise and colorful characters, scoring more laughs than they miss.
Peele stars as Rell, a pot-smoking photographer recently dumped by his girlfriend, but when an adorable kitten appears on his doorstep, he names it Keanu, and little feline reignites his life with meaning.  A couple of weeks later, Rell goes out with his uptight cousin and best pal Clarence (played by Key), whose wife and kid are out of town for the weekend, but when they return to Rell's house that night, they find it ransacked and Keanu gone.  Desperate to get his kitten back, Rell drags Clarence along to interrogate his neighbor/weed dealer Hulka (Will Forte), who reveals the raid was performed by the "Blips", a street gang led by one named Cheddar (Method Man), who mistakes Rell and Clarence for a couple of reputed assassins and requests that they accompany his sellers on a day run in exchange for Keanu's return.

There are some great comedic bits, some as simple as the adorable kitten (actually portrayed by seven different tabby kittens) who meows with its full body, coming out more as an enthusiastic squeak, and culture clash of Clarence in particular, a corporate counselor for team-building exercises, with the inner-city gang kids they accompany on business.  There are substantial portions, however, during which laughs come in short supply, and the balancing of tones between violent gang warfare and the goofiness of the characters suffers as a result.  While Atencio's work on Key and Peele showcases an impressive versatility, within the feature, he isn't so successful at making those tonal shifts as someone like Edgar Wright.  The comedy style we've seen them work in before derived heavily from the kind of absurdity and genre conventions present in the movie, as well as the hidden intent of polite social conventions and dialogue, such as the now-iconic Luther, Barack Obama's "anger translator", which isn't here so much.  Where the movie works best is perhaps in its leading men, who bring a lot of likable screen charisma and chemistry, and even when they forget to be funny, they have a surprising amount of heart.