The Pickup Review: Eddie Murphy Elevates A Forgettable Crime Comedy

Due to their bloated budgets, with the most high-profile releases costing hundreds of millions of dollars, we often tend not to think about straight-to-streaming movies as the modern equivalent of a cheap and disposable straight-to-video one. The very nature of the movie business has led high-profile directors and stars to accept money from streaming behemoths that a studio wouldn’t cough up, and nobody could seriously label a Martin Scorsese film as straight-to-video even if it did bypass more theaters than it played in. But then you see something like “The Pickup,” which even with its bevy of charismatic A-list stars can’t quite hide how limited its scope is compared to a big-screen action-comedy.

The first couple of acts take place largely on the same deserted stretch of highway, only one other car ever seen passing through, and once we arrive at the destination, we’re escorted to and from several generic warehouses and diner sets you’ll find in any studio lot. At every single moment, you can see the very visible constraints of the production, and why it would never work on the big screen despite its high-octane action premise. Despite everything, the vastly overqualified cast stubbornly refuses to phone it in, with their high-wattage charisma acting as the ultimate special effect; their banter is entertaining enough to help distract from just how cheap everything else onscreen looks.

It’s particularly surprising considering how often we’ve seen Eddie Murphy sleepwalk through vehicles like this throughout the years, but he approaches the role of armored truck driver Russell Pierce as the kind of by-the-book elder statesman a maverick character like Axel Foley would be in constant opposition to. “The Pickup” isn’t a buddy cop comedy, but it has the same DNA as one. You know the formula; there’s the older figure nearing retirement who just wants to finish his shift — in this case, to get to his 25th wedding anniversary dinner with an underutilized Eva Longoria on time — who has been unwillingly paired with a new recruit who is unstable and incompetent in equal measure. This is Travis Stolly (Pete Davidson), who is placed on this job after royally screwing up a training exercise, pointing a gun at a civilian. If that wasn’t bad enough, that civilian was the elusive Zoe (Keke Palmer), who tricks him into a date after realizing he’d be a great sacrificial pawn in her criminal masterplan.

Initially, it’s quite surreal to have Murphy play the mature, sensible figure suffering next to an untamable partner, but the two alumni of different “Saturday Night Live” generations have surprisingly complimentary comedy styles. Both specialize in portraying characters who are laid-back and rife with charisma, only to spiral into unflappable fits of rage at the most inopportune moments. Davidson is nowhere near the level of Murphy, of course, and no casting director would ever cast him as a similarly cool figure to the ones the older actor was playing in his prime, but the influence on him is clear, and it never falls over into awkward pastiche. Their ongoing, antagonizing banter with each other manages to keep the wheels of the truck turning, even as you can see very little happening in the world around them.

The action sequences are where the film is lacking, although director Tim Story — who also helmed both “Ride Along” vehicles, which he’s most clearly trying to imitate with his mismatched leads here — is self-aware enough to build them around the physical limitations of his two leads. As Zoe and her cronies attempt to intercept the truck on the distractingly empty highway, an aging Russell must contend with a bad back to physically get them off their tail, his younger counterpart struggling to be useful while still at the wheel. It can’t be stated enough just how much good chemistry between two game actors can help sell sequences filmed under restraints as clear as these; they feel like lived-in characters thrown into the most disposable, unimaginatively staged DTV genre trash you could conceive of.

Keke Palmer’s Zoe is a solid inclusion from the midway point, after successfully boarding the truck and holding the pair hostage until they help carry out her plan. Again, she feels overqualified for this material, and despite the intrigue of being a femme fatale, has the least well-realized character of the central trio — the fact she manages to land some laughs and command attention is an encouraging sign that she could easily level up to the next stage in her movie star career. What is a movie star for, if not to distract us from a film’s flaws and to instead re-orient the entire narrative around them?

However, “The Pickup” is truly the Eddie Murphy show, a reminder of his movie star qualities outside of legacy sequels to his earlier favorites. If anything, it’s a shame that all of his starring roles from the brilliant “Dolemite Is My Name” onward have been relegated to streaming; I’ve seen what Murphy looks like on autopilot, and since his career resurgence began, he’s managed to avoid phoning in even the most forgettable streaming slop that probably deserved it. The low-concept nature of the central premise is a further reminder of how relaxed a performer he is even without motor-mouthed dialogue or characters buried in prosthetics — he’s amiable and effortlessly funny even as the straight man in a duo who has been given more stern, disapproving looks to his younger co-worker in the script than bona fide zingers for himself.

He may be returning to that over-the-top mode soon, with “Shrek 5,” a Donkey spin-off, and a reboot of “The Pink Panther” in the works, but those roles are more representative of the comedic actor he became rather than the one he established himself as in the movies. Axel Foley was a rule breaking motormouth, but he was also a fairly grounded guy blessed with unnatural charisma. Roles like “The Pickup” are periodic reminders that Murphy doesn’t need silly, overblown conceits or armies of special effects artists to be funny. He can get laughs from even the most generic crime comedy without breaking a sweat, and while nobody will remember this film just days after watching it, you can’t argue that he doesn’t elevate it considerably.

“The Pickup” hits Amazon Prime Video on August 6.