By George & Josh Bate
Two generations of comedians collide as comedy legend Eddie Murphy teams up with contemporary superstars Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer for an early 2000s-style action comedy. The logline for The Pickup is an easy sell, especially in a day and age in which star-driven comedies from major film studios are few and far between. Unfortunately, the comedic talents of three heavyweights can only carry a film so far, proving that all the right ingredients put together don’t necessarily make a great meal.
The Pickup comes from experienced director Tim Story, whose latest directorial effort The Blackening was one of the most underappreciated and overlooked movies of 2022. The film stars Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson as Russell and Travis respectively, two armored truck drivers reluctantly paired together for a seemingly routine pickup. The job goes off the rails (literally and figuratively) when Russell and Travis’ truck is attacked by a crew led by Zoe (Keke Palmer), a clever criminal determined to execute a daring heist.
In a recent press conference, Davidson described The Pickup as a “fun, early 2000s old school action comedy,” while Murphy said the film reminds him of “‘80s buddy movie comedies.” Both appraisals are true as Tim Story’s latest draws inspiration from high-stakes, light-hearted action comedies of the past like Rush Hour, Beverly Hills Cops, 48 Hrs., and Midnight Run. There’s a hostile, yet breezy and increasingly warm dynamic between the two leads, a variety of exciting action setpieces, and punchy lines, insults, and physical gags throughout. But despite checking all the boxes of the films it wishes to replicate, The Pickup falls flat with humor lacking in wit and sharpness.
As a fusion of the action and comedy genres, The Pickup surprisingly excels more so with the former than the latter. Tim Story, who has helmed elaborate action in films like Fantastic Four (2005), demonstrates a strong handling of intense, fast-paced, and well-edited action here. Much of the first half of the film is dedicated to a road heist that sees Murphy and Davidson’s characters driving their armored truck trying to stop Palmer’s character and her team from stealing the truck. It’s a surprisingly lengthy and intricate action set piece for the action comedy genre that manages to excite, even when the jokes preceding and succeeding it are frustratingly humorless. As the film progresses, the story takes a number of somewhat interesting turns, which, ultimately, prove more important than one would expect as they ensure interest doesn’t completely crumble.
Disappointingly, the engaging story turns and effectively engineered action fail to elevate the film above and beyond its unimaginative and uninspired humor. In comedies like this, it is often unclear how many of the jokes are scripted and how many are improvised by the actors, which makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly how The Pickup misses the mark so woefully with its humor. Across a 90+ minute runtime, we could count the number of genuine laughs the film generated on one hand, a shockingly low total for a film bolstering this caliber of comedic talent. Eddie Murphy employs his trademark line delivery to crack a few smiles, but the actual content of his jokes are devoid of the wit and punch audiences have come to expect from the comedy legend. The same can be said for Pete Davidson, whose portrayal of the socially awkward and oblivious Travis does little to elicit laughs beyond a few chuckles here and there. There’s some fun to be had with a budding romance between Davidson’s truck driver and Palmer’s truck robber, even if their back-and-forth never comes close to some of the accomplished actors’ previous works. All of this results in a comedy that commits the cardinal sin of all comedies: it’s simply not that funny. More damningly, Story’s film squanders the potential of the exceptional trio of leads, who seem to be having far more fun making the movie than audiences will have watching it.
VERDICT: 4/10
The combined comedic talents of Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, and Keke Palmer aren’t enough to save this early 2000s-style action comedy from quickly running out of gas. The Pickup draws inspiration from films like Rush Hour, Midnight Run, 48 Hrs., and Beverly Hills Cop, but, unlike these classics of the action comedy genre, is marred by humor devoid of wit and punch. Director Tim Story demonstrates a strong handling of action set-pieces, especially an elaborate, well-edited, and surprisingly lengthy car heist that dominates the film’s first half, and the story takes some interesting turns with its heist narrative, although neither attribute sufficiently compels enough to overlook 90+ minutes of misfiring jokes. Eliciting shockingly few genuine laughs despite the comedy heavyweights at its core, The Pickup squanders its talented leads with a dull script that even Eddie Murphy’s trademark, high-pitched line delivery can’t salvage. Years ago, The Pickup would have been the kind of minimally entertaining movie you’d watch on FX, TNT, or TBS in the background as you go about household chores, but, in 2025, the film is relegated to streaming and, as such, will likely last fleetingly in the memories of viewers, even the most fervent of Murphy, Davidson, and Palmer fans.