Film: The Lovebirds
Starring: Issa Rae, Kumail Nanijiani
Director: Michael Showalter
Review: Klep Napier
Rating: 2.5X out of 5X
Originally scheduled for a full theatrical run now streaming on Netflix comes a slapstick, romantic comedy "who dun it" starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanijiani.
Lovebirds follows couple Lailani [Rae] and Jibran [Nanijiani] as their once thriving relationship with one another turns into a stagnant, pile of redundancy. Lailani just wants a bit of spontaneity and Jibran well, just doesn’t have it in him. All that changes one evening when they accidentally hit a man with there vehicle and hilariously get mixed up in an underground cult conspiracy ran by the rich and powerful.
Let's be brutally honest shall we. For me the only reason this works is because both Rae and Nanijiani have great comedic timing and deserve to lead behind the wheel of a decent comedy but where the film mostly loses is there just isn’t any on screen chemistry between the two.
The best idea was making the couple “non traditional” and mixing races. The worst idea was using these two at the same time. Throughout you cannot help but ask why are these two even together in the first place? We never get a full on blend of their situation. More or less Nanijiani struggles to fit into Rae’s world as the two attempt escape bad guys and police throughout the night.
Overall, funny where it should be but mostly makes no sense character wise and could’ve done better with a different pair. A decent date night flick for movie buffs without any expectations.