Coffee & Kareem: Movie Review

Well that was bad and confusing. From the get go it's pretty obvious that "Coffee & Kareem" won't have much to offer but its comedy alone. But even with those extremely low expectations at the onset, the film still performs very poorly. This is a mashup that doesn't make any sense or jive well.

Police Officer James Coffee (Ed Helms) is in a relationship with Vanessa Manning (Taraji P. Henson). But her 12-year-old son Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) doesn't like James and devices a scheme to have James be scared away for good. Kareem tries to hire criminals to do the dirty deed but it fails badly and eventually finds himself and James the target of these criminals. Now the two are forced to team-up to save Vanessa and their asses.

With all its profanities, dirty jokes, and gore, there's this unnerving and awkward feeling that "Coffee & Kareem" is really forcing it to be hip, cool, and funny. Unfortunately, the film turned out to be in the worst shape it could be as jokes fall flat, the story even for a mindless comedy is a complete head-shaker, and the young Kareem feels extremely out of place. Ironically, he is actually the character with the raunchiest and dirtiest script. To put it in simple terms, nothing in the film literally lands and we could actually count the scenes or jokes that made us laugh. The only saving grace is probably Taraji P. Henson who surprisingly brought in her usual powerful performance but that's pretty much about it. Even with its slim running time, the film felt long and tedious. This is no "21 Jump Street" and it would be best to avoid this as much as possible - even as a time-waster.

Rating: A half reel






Why you should watch it:
- Taraji P. Henson was only the good thing in this film

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the comedy falls flat and the story is worthless