Uncle Drew (Review)
Uncle Drew Lands More Jokes Than Shaq Made Free-Throws.
Hollywood has a long-standing history of casting athletes in films with mostly disastrous results. Fortunately, Uncle Drew manages to finally get it right. It features an all-star cast with the likes of NBA favorites Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, and Nate Robinson. That right there is enough talent to be a dream team on the court and somehow they manage to transfer that awe-inspiring charisma to the big screen. In that regards, I have to hand it to director Charles Stone III who manages to pull side-splitting performances from these athletes. Of course, they aren’t the only ones who make Uncle Drew one of the funniest comedies of the summer.
I’m not going to mince words, there’s a lot wrong with Uncle Drew. The editing is unfocused and creates inconsistent pacing. The story is filled with cliches and overall the filmmaking is more than a just a bit dry. However, these are all just technical issues and ones that are easy to ignore, because Uncle Drew has more than enough heart. It’s also got one hell of a sharp tongue which goes a long way in helping it rise above its faults. While the NBA stars might carry the film, for the most part, they have plenty of back up from the likes of modern comedy legends Lil Rey Howery and Nick Kroll to help them along when they start to stumble. Honestly, though, I felt the basketball players were the most consistent with their deliveries. While Kroll and Howery might have more experience, they’re second fiddle when it comes to this feature. Oh and don’t forget Tiffany Haddish who manages to make her character despicable in all the right ways.
Like so many other great basketball movies, Uncle Drew is filled with all the safe cliches we’ve come to know and love. It takes pretty much every great sports inspirational poster you might be familiar with from teamwork to having confidence in yourself and your abilities and stuffs them in where ever they fit (and even where they don’t). However, this isn’t a movie that’s trying to be Rocky or Miracle, which is a good thing because that would have made it an absolute disaster. It’s a summer comedy about old men who come back to show the “young bloods” what the love of basketball really looks like. With a concept like that you know you’re not walking into high art. So the cliches fit well in between the quick-witted one-liners and great basketball sequences. It’s a film that’s made to be fun and entertaining, which isn’t an excuse, but it’s more than enough to make it well worth the price of admission.
Now, I’ve mentioned the players and the comedians that came together to make this a fun day at the movies, but I have to give a lot of credit to Jay Longino who wrote the script. How he managed to make a feature-length film out of a character created for Pepsi Max commercials is beyond me, but to top it off he managed to make it incredibly funny. Sure, it doesn’t land all the shots it attempts, but it makes more than enough for me to praise him for trying. Of course, I’m not sure how many of the jokes were improvised, but it features some absolutely glorious trash talking, something that seems totally natural to the all-stars and helps make their characters more endearing overall. While a lot of the comedy in Uncle Drew is absurdist and mocks the geriatric characters and their various elements, the parts that really cracked me up where when they poked fun at each other.
While I might not be expecting any Oscar nominations for best makeup in Uncle Drew’s future, it was pretty impressive how they managed to make athletes who are a far cry from old look absolutely ancient on screen. There’s a lot of goofy qualities to the overall look of these characters, but it never feels like they become caricatures. In fact, they could probably get away with walking down the street in full makeup and never have anyone give them a second look. While this film might be a light-hearted comedy, the makeup is more than a little impressive, even if it’s mostly confined to their faces.
Like I said earlier, I won’t mince words when it comes to Uncle Drew. It’s a corny movie that feeds off of the audiences sentimentality at times and the filmmaking is hardly worth writing home about. That being said, it’s a movie that’s inspired by a character created for a Pepsi commercial (and will probably make Pepsi a lot more money than the box office will ever see). That alone gives it a tremendous handicap considering that so many Saturday Night Live movies based off their skits are just god awful. However, it’s a genuinely funny film and one I certainly wouldn’t mind watching again once it’s released on video. While so many other critics might pick it apart, I’ll simply say Uncle Drew might be far from perfect, but it made me laugh and left a smile on my face. Something that not too many other films have managed to do this year and that alone makes it a great summer flick. Afterall, what’s the summer without a few good mindless movies?
