Title: The Pickup
Director: Tim Story
Cast: Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, Keke Palmer, Eva Longoria, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Jack Kesy
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Rating: 2.5 stars
The Pickup: Review
This film feels like an expensive prank played by a bunch of talented people who should have known better. A buddy-heist comedy in theory, a clunky caper in execution, it drags its audiences through a chaotic route with all the grace of a flat tire on a foggy highway. Centered on two armoured car guards—Russell (Eddie Murphy), a weary veteran, and Travis (Pete Davidson), a walking HR hazard—the plot devolves from mildly amusing to mildly unhinged.
The story’s supposed charm lies in its simplicity: a day of mundane cash deliveries goes rogue thanks to a heist involving an ex-fling, two goons, a paint bomb, and a casino. Yet, somewhere between all the slashed tires and sizzling car crashes, the film forgets whether it wants to be Ocean’s Eleven, Dumb and Dumber, or a PSA about workplace anxiety.
The tone lurches from heist thriller to slapstick farce, like a GPS constantly “recalculating.” There’s an earnest effort to say something about blue-collar ambition, but it's buried beneath a rubble of half-baked twists and gags that land with the subtlety of a jackhammer.
The Pickup: Actors’ Performance
Eddie Murphy, the man who once gave us Beverly Hills Cop and Coming to America, spends much of the film looking like he’s mentally placing a grocery order between takes. That said, even his sleepiest performance still yields a chuckle or two. Pete Davidson, as the accident-prone rookie, is more or less playing Pete Davidson—with all the stoner charisma and sketch-comedy unpredictability that implies. He occasionally brings a deflating self-awareness to the chaos, which helps more than it hurts.
Keke Palmer, saddled with the most “serious” role as the heist’s mastermind, does her best to inject gravitas into a character written with the depth of a napkin doodle. Her chemistry with Davidson is at odds with the script’s uneven tone, and her arc—part femme fatale, part woman scorned—feels like a narrative afterthought. Eva Longoria, showing up late to the party as Russell’s wife, Natalie, nearly walks away with the film thanks to her snappy timing and welcome unpredictability.
The Pickup: Music and Aesthetics
Christopher Lennertz’s score huffs and puffs to convince us the stakes are high, but the music ends up sounding like it’s working harder than the plot. Stylistically, the film attempts slickness—but it all plays like someone threw Michael Bay techniques into a blender without the blade.
The aesthetic borrows liberally from better genre flicks, but the visual grammar doesn’t elevate the material. Instead, it highlights the mismatch between the film’s ambitions and its execution. You keep expecting a wink from the director, some sly nod that he knows how ridiculous things have gotten. Instead, you get a poker face and another explosion.
The Pickup: FPJ Verdict
Overall, The Pickup is a comedy that tries to outsmart itself, and ends up trip-wiring its own momentum. Just don’t expect a smooth ride. Watch it with snacks and cynicism.
