{"id":328520,"date":"2025-08-08T18:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328520\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T18:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T18:18:11","slug":"the-pickup-review-better-off-left-unpicked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328520\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pickup Review \u2013 ‘Better off left unpicked’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When security guards Russell (Eddie Murphy) and Travis (Pete Davidson) have their armoured truck attacked by a team of criminals led by Zoe (Keke Palmer), they find themselves embroiled in a major heist.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been much talk lately of the decline of the movie comedy. But action-comedies, the movie comedy\u2019s punchier, shootier, more explodey cousin, are all the rage \u2014 at least for streaming services looking for undemanding, easy-to-watch, pop-it-on-in-the-background fare. In the last year alone, we\u2019ve had Deep Cover<\/a>, Heads Of State<\/a>, Love Hurts<\/a>, Novocaine<\/a>, Back In Action<\/a>, Guns Up \u2014 and now The Pickup, starring Eddie Murphy.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Murphy would seem like canny casting: he is largely responsible for the popularity of action-comedies in their modern form, having starred in some of the greatest incarnations of the subgenre in the 1980s, from 48 Hrs.<\/a> to Beverly Hills Cop<\/a>. But in The Pickup, he is unwisely and disappointingly placed in the role of the straight man, his natural comedic gifts largely muzzled, while fellow former SNL cast-member Pete Davidson takes the role of his comedic foil. They play mismatched security guards thrown together for a job, but while Travis (Davidson) is just thrilled to get laid, Russell (Murphy) is desperate to finish his shift on time so he can get back to his wife Natalie (Eva Longoria) for their anniversary dinner.<\/p>\n

\n

Beyond the whizz-bang fun, it\u2019s hard to truly care.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The cast \u2014 including Keke Palmer as unlikely love interest\/master criminal Zoe \u2014 are just about charismatic enough to keep things watchable, even if, with the best will in the world, Davidson\u2019s versatility and charm do not scrape anywhere near the heights of Murphy\u2019s heyday. But the script gives them so little to work with. It\u2019s nearly all lame and juvenile material, comprised primarily of cheap sex jokes (\u201cGo ahead, Russ \u2014 go get your dick sucked,\u201d offers Travis at the film\u2019s ostensible emotional climax) or tired observations about racial differences (\u201cYou\u2019re Black, so you look 40, but you could be up to 90\u201d).<\/p>\n

Director Tim Story, a veteran of the mismatched-buddy action-comedy by now with the Ride Along<\/a> movies, at least brings a certain level of directorial flair to the action, with some impressively shot practical stunts, especially during a high-speed freeway chase between an armoured van, a fleet of acrobatic baddies, and some slow-motion exploding dye-packs. But beyond the whizz-bang fun, it\u2019s hard to truly care with character development so back-of-an-envelope deep: Russell\u2019s entire personality is that he loves his wife, while Travis\u2019 is that he\u2019s horny.<\/p>\n

That leaves Palmer, as the nominal femme fatale, to practically steal the film from under the two leads\u2019 noses. She brings movie-star quality, even when the plot descends into eyebrow-furrowing contrivances. Come the climactic Atlantic City heist, you are far more likely to find yourself oddly bored than anything else. Which is fine if you do indeed just have this film on in the background. But, as Murphy\u2019s presence here reminds us (there is a pointed needle drop of The Pointer Sisters\u2019 \u2018Neutron Dance\u2019, which feels more saddening than gladdening), action-comedies used to be so much more than that.<\/p>\n

A weak shadow of Eddie Murphy\u2019s action-comedy yesteryear, The Pickup would be better off being left unpicked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When security guards Russell (Eddie Murphy) and Travis (Pete Davidson) have their armoured truck attacked by a team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-328520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114994525508744631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}