Next Day Air

Review By: Jon Allen
JonAllen@TheCinemaSource.com

Final Grade: B+

Director Benny Boom’s resume reads with a collection of music video credits, and he initially would seem an unlikely source for a full-length feature film. But having worked consistently with directors Little X and Hype Williams, he emerges an accomplished and fully capable talent with an exceptional eye for visual storytelling and comic timing. Next Day Air is a successful, well-written, and personably complex story about a drug deal gone way wrong. It’s a buddy / stoner / screwball hybrid that someday might even find a cult audience. What works especially is a desire to subvert those conventions somewhat with solid characters that manage to connect with the viewer; everyone here feels like a friend that you might want to hang out with all the time, even though they repeatedly make ridiculous mistakes. You forgive them just because their collective obliviousness is somehow humanistic and intrinsically beautiful in a world dominated by harsh interconnectedness of everyday life.

Donald Faison, of Scrubs fame, plays Leo a Philadelphia delivery man that specializes in screwing up his job with or without the benefits of marijuana. He’s on the verge of getting fired from his mother, the Next Day Air manager, but he somehow manages to convince her (Debbie Allen, in one of the film’s many hilarious moments) into a conditional stay, after promising to never mess up again. His friend and co-worker, a very subdued but catchy Mos Def, re-enforces the audience’s belief that it’s only a matter of time before they both mess up; We find Mos’s character rummaging through opened packages looking for anything resembling “money”.

Carrying with him an oversized package, and in a pot-induced haze that will facilitate the story’s great central conflict, Leo arrives at his final destination. Inside this package lies hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine, and it’s meant for Jesus (Cisco Reyes) and his girlfriend Chita (newcomer Yasmin Deliz), on behalf of mega-dealer Bodega, played perfectly, and with an unintentionally hilarious dramatic effect by Emilio Rivera. When this shipment, thanks to Leo’s slightly drug-induced confusion, ends up in the hands of two opportunistic and foolish bank robbers, Brody and Guch (a very solid comic tandem in Mike Epps and Wood Harris), both of whom are looking for one last big break before they can retire and move out of each other’s lives. Having just bungled a heist in an almost stupidly priceless chain of events, the package brings with it the possibility of money and no work.

Before they can get rid of their new stash and find a market, they need a distributor, and Brody just so happens to have on in his cousin Shavoo, played by Omari Hardwick. His partner, the Family Matters alum Darius McCrary, goes by “Buddy” but avoids telling everyone his actual name. Shavoo and his right hand man leave to grab their money and promise to return after meeting with Brody and Guch, but get sidetracked when Next ...