History is littered with countless action comedies and buddy cop capers elevated above mediocrity solely by the chemistry generated between the two leads, and while Stuber definitely possesses that in spades, it wasn’t enough to prevent the end product from being drastically less than the sum of its parts.
As well as the inspired central pairing of Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani as a visually-impaired veteran officer and out of his depth Uber driver partnering up to crack a drug ring, the ensemble also boasts The Raid‘s Iko Uwais as its villain, along with Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino, Karen Gillan, Natalie Morales, Betty Gilpin, Jimmy Tatro, and plenty more on top of that.
Unfortunately, all that talent wasn’t able to save Stuber from a shrug of critical and commercial indifference, with director Michael Dowse’s run of the mill shoot ’em up notching a 42 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an underwhelming box office haul of just $32 million.
That being said, there’s a lot of people out there who appreciate Stuber for its no-frills approach to a formula that’s been done to death for decades, and it would appear that many of them are iTunes account holders after FlixPatrol named the Disney-backed misfire to be one of the platform’s biggest hits.
An R-rated, blood-splattered, and foul-mouthed street-level actioner isn’t exactly what you’d expect to come bearing the Mouse House branding, but that’s easily the most unique and interesting thing about it other than Bautista and Nanjiani’s delightful sparring.
