Is it just me or have there been a lot of comedies lately falling back into the well-worn tropes of the buddy cop genre without both leads being cops. There ARE movies with two mismatched cops (at least two of the better ones star Melissa McCarthy), but we now have cops dragging innocent civilians into their dangerous escapades (e.g. Central Intelligence, Stuber), couples trying to prove their innocence by diving into the underworld (e.g. Date Night, The Lovebirds), and adults teamed up with kids (My Spy, this). Of course, the familiar formula has been reworked with various combinations over the past few decades, nothing new there, but it feels as if there's been a recent resurgence, with it already becoming almost as tired and word as it was by the time Whoopi Goldber was partnered up with a talking dinosaur.
Ed Helms plays a police officer, Coffee, who doesn't seem to be too good at his job. He's enjoying his new relationship with Vanessa (Taraji P. Henson) though, although things may be a little tense with her son, Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh). In fact, Kareem pretends to want some bonding time with Coffee, all to set a plan in motion that he hopes will get the man a beating. Things go wrong though, and Coffee and Kareem end up running for their lives. There are some dangerous baddies hot on their tale, and there may be some corrupt cops also involved.
The first feature from writer Shane Mack, this is very much a paint-by-numbers example of this kind of film, with the added "bonus" of one of the protagonists being a foul-mouthed kid. Mack sets everything up as you would expect. People being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the leads not getting on for the majority of the movie, but working together when necessary, and the obvious reveal of the main villain (revealed quite early on, to be fair, and not presented as a big "gotcha" moment). It's nothing special, but it's not bad, and there are a couple of good scenes making use of Helms being a desperate man while not wanting to be perceived as racist.
Director Michael Dowse (who also helmed Stuber, funnily enough) goes through the motions. He's not a director with any kind of voice, he just tends to work as well as the material that he's given. Coffee & Kareem is just okay, mainly because it is dragged down by the fact that Kareem isn't as hilarious a character as those making the movie think he is.
Gardenhigh isn't necessarily to blame for the way his character comes across, but it's easy to imagine things playing out a bit better with someone else in the role, perhaps someone who can better play up the attitude while also staying likeable enough to root for. Helms is doing the kind of stiff everyman he has done so many times before, and he's good at it, and Henson is disappointingly underused. Betty Gilpin takes on another movie role in her seemingly ongoing attempt to find something cinematically that will best showcase her talent, and she's definitely a highlight. It's just a shame that the middling nature of the rest of the movie means that this is another role that won't really stand out in her filmography.
Coffee & Kareem is okay, and that's all. You can watch it once and forget about it soon after, or you can avoid it completely without any fear of missing out. It's a shame that they decided to try and wring most of their laughs from Kareem being "hilariously profane". That's not where the better comedy lies, and it's only the other gags that help to make this average, as opposed to truly awful.
5/10
