"The Pickup" has a talented cast (Eddie Murphy, Eva Longoria, etc.,), a novel plot (guards in an armored vehicle are taken hostage to rob a casino) and action scenes that are refreshingly free of obvious CGI, only to go absolutely nowhere.
Murphy stars as Russell, a veteran armored vehicle guard who is just months away from retiring; he wants to start a bed and breakfast with his wife (a wasted Longoria), and wouldn't ya know it, today is their wedding anniversary. He makes his wife promise she won't be late to their dinner reservations, before he sets off for a day on the job. Unfortunately, he's stuck with the annoying new guy Travis (played by the annoying Pete Davidson), who is gloating about a random hookup he had with a beautiful girl he just met. He actually thought she was robbing the bank he met her at, pulling his gun on her and everything; everyone has worked with an idiot like this, and for the entire runtime I wish he'd just shut up, but I digress.
Russell is also vexed about the route he has today, which takes them through the middle of nowhere in a dead zone (where their radios won't work), as he needs to get back in time for dinner. I know I know, how riveting a plot this is.
And wouldn't you know it, the moment they hit this dead zone, a pair of large SUVs pull up from behind, and a masked figure appears. "Pull over and you won't be hurt," reads a sign the person holds, but if they did that there wouldn't be much of a movie, so instead we get an action scene where they try and get the armored van to stop. The veteran and rookie somehow manage to crash both pursuing cars, but just as they begin patting themselves on the back, one of the crooks manages to sneak onto the back, get inside, and thanks to a gun, brings the armored truck to a stop.
The villain pulls off their helmet and, in something that can only happen in the movies, it turns out to be Zoe, the girl he just slept with the other day. She's played by Keke Palmer, and while she might be great as the straight man in a comedy duo, she simply isn't menacing enough to be taken seriously as the baddie; she just looks too friendly. And not in the "outwardly nice but internally crazy" Gary Busey way- she looks like a dentist or something. But a slight miscast is the least of the problems here.
Her plan is to use their vehicle to make a pickup from a casino, and drive off into the sunset. She gets the sixty million, and they get to walk away with their lives, or so she says, but honestly, who cares? This is Murphy's first action comedy since 2002's "Showtime" that isn't based on an existing property, but he looks absolutely miserable, like someone just sucked all the funny out of him. He might get top billing, but it's Davidson who drives the plot; it's because of him that their characters are in this mess, and he just whines and complains and he just... won't shut up.
And it's a shame because the special effects are handled with surprising finesse, with what looks like actual vehicles driving on actual roads, with actual people hanging off the back door.
"The Pickup" was directed by Tim Story, who brought us the dreadful "Shaft" in 2019 and the equally unpleasant "Tom & Jerry" in 2021, and while there isn't a scene here that hasn't been done before, and done better, I would most certainly watch this over the other two. Faint praise I know, but praise nonetheless.
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