What makes a bad movie become so bad it’s good? It’s a question I’ve long wanted to tackle in a review, and with The Pickup, I finally have the right vehicle. This film, directed by Tim Story and releasing straight to Prime Video this week, is not good. No disaster, perhaps, but undeniably a waste of its considerable comedic resources. And yet, I laughed, early and relatively often.
I eventually recognized it as that special so-bad-it’s-good laugh, directed at the movie but somehow still endearing me to it. A warm mockery, like teasing a friend for something you can’t believe they were dumb enough to do. I finished The Pickup feeling goodwill toward it, while respecting it not at all.
I didn’t expect to find that feeling in a movie with such star power, and indeed, this isn’t destined to be a so-bad cult classic. But that’s also what makes dissecting it so potentially illuminating.
The Pickup Makes Its Simple Story Way Too Important
The Pickup has a simple premise. Two armored car guards are paired for a day of deliveries that, while run-of-the-mill, promises to be long. Russell (Eddie Murphy) is a veteran employee whose only concern is making it home on time to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary. Travis (Pete Davidson) is a rookie screw-up who still hasn’t gotten over failing the police exam.
Just before, after a meet-cute that tells us all we need to know about his professional incompetence, Travis spent an improbable romantic weekend with Zoe (Keke Palmer), who was casing him. Now, she’s enlisted two goons to help her pull off a heist while Travis and Russell drive through a signal ᴅᴇᴀᴅ zone, aiming to net $60 million in cash.
So-bad-it’s-good movies are often characterized by the sincerity with which they execute their badness…
There’s more to it, but there also isn’t; The Pickup‘s plotting is paper-thin. A simple setup can be healthy for both comedies and action movies, as long as the filmmakers realize that story doesn’t really matter – The Naked Gun did this effectively. Story’s film is far more invested in its narrative than is merited.
This touches on why I experienced this movie the way I did. So-bad-it’s-good movies are often characterized by the sincerity with which they execute their badness, to the extent that it feels like it should’ve been impossible that what’s onscreen was ever taken so seriously. Done wrong in just the right way, they make us laugh consistently, but unintentionally – the movie can’t be in on the joke to strike this chord.
The Pickup Thinks It’s An Action Movie (& Wastes Its Comedy Stars)
It’s far more natural for amateur, microbudget projects to capture this tone than something like The Pickup, and it’s similarly unusual to find in something actually trying to make us laugh. That effort alone should be a turnoff, and when the jokes fall flat, it definitely is. (There are some real, earned laughs, but in terms of percentage, they were dwarfed by the other kind.)
The key is that this movie is mostly an action-heist movie, and despite its silliness, it takes a lot of those sequences seriously. A seasoned filmmaker like Story knows the camera moves and editing choices Hollywood movies use to telegraph that something is “cool,” and he deploys them frequently. But they don’t make something cool so much as communicate that the movie thinks it’s cool, and within this profoundly uncool, made-for-streaming aesthetic, that becomes laughable.
In a movie with Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, and Keke Palmer, I laughed the hardest at snap-zooms. That’s a problem – for some, probably an unforgivable one. Davidson gets the most wins here, largely because his presence deflates the movie. There are some moments, with the way he’s used, that make The Pickup resemble an SNL Chad sketch. He contributes to the tone it ultimately has, not the one it was going for.
Murphy is sleepwalking through this one, but being Eddie Murphy, he can still crack some jokes in his sleep. It’s Palmer who’s the most egregiously wasted. Her natural charisma is weighed down by a character meant to be calm, cool, and collected, but is ultimately boring.
There’s a more comedic version of this premise, heightened by a few degrees, that would’ve worked well in its own right. As it is, I still enjoyed my 94 minutes with The Pickup, even if it was at the movie’s expense.
