Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Coffee and Kareem’ on Netflix, a Crass Cop Comedy Starring a Typically Oafish Ed Helms

New Netflix movie Coffee and Kareem faces an uphill battle already, asking us to overcome that pun. Seriously. This is exquisitely on par for director Michael Dowse, whose previous film was Stuber, about a guy named Stu who drives for Uber. So hit me up, Mr. Dowse — I have a screenplay for you, a mismatched-buddy comedy about a boxer and a mathematician called Punch ‘n’ Pi.

COFFEE AND KAREEM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: James Coffee (Ed Helms) is the type of police officer who’s continually in danger of incapacitating himself with his own pepper spray or clubbing his own nuts with his nightstick. He was caught on camera bungling an arrest — the guy got away, driving Coffee’s cruiser — and now he’s an internet-viral laughingstock. But he just kinda owns it and rolls with it, gamely soldiering on, well aware of his own incompetence, and shouldering mountains of verbal abuse levied at him by fellow officer Watts (Betty Gilpin, of GLOW fame).

Coffee is dating Vanessa (Taraji P. Henson), sneaking in for a little hide-the-pickle once her 12-year-old son Kareem (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) leaves for school. I think she likes him because he’s a nice guy, a milk-and-cookies straight-arrow who pronounces it “vergina” and likely doesn’t have it in himself to step on an ant. Kareem has a mouth like a sludge dump; for his class poetry assignment, he writes a filthy rap about the crush he has on his teacher, and performs it for the class.

Kareem doesn’t take kindly to some mustached white guy banging his mom, and isn’t afraid to say it to Coffee in the most vulgar terms. But as fate would have it, they’re forced to buddy up when they witness the murder of a dirty cop, tangling them with the same drug dealer who stole Coffee’s prowler, Orlando Johnson (RonReaco Lee). The plot thicks from there, like when you add cream to coffee, and that’s kind of the movie’s hidden joke, because cream is white but Kareem is black and coffee is black but Coffee is white.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Coffee and Kareem is begging for Cop and a Half comparisons. But I thought it was a dumber version of Hot Fuzz and/or the sweet spot between Paul Blart: Mall Cop and some tough-ass cop movie like, I dunno, Nighthawks. Yeah. Nighthawks.

Performance Worth Watching: Even though it’s a supporting role, Gilpin’s character enjoys an arc that allows her to be nasty-funny in a scene-thievery kind of way.

Memorable Dialogue: Watts describes Coffee thusly: “This is a guy who jerks off to Glenn Close.”

Sex and Skin: This is the type of movie that believes comedy can be derived from a scene in which a cop takes a 12-year-old to a topless strip club.

Our Take: Coffee and Kareem leans heavily on the kid-says-inappropriate-things thing, which is just as hacky as that weary cinema trope, The Foul-Mouthed Granny. There’s a running gag about being put on hold when you call 911 and Reservoir Dogs and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans references. Coffee is a stereotypical Helmsian idjit, the plot is sloppy, Henson’s talent is wasted, and the whole thing leads to a very grisly-violent hyperventilation of an ending.

This is all mostly forgivable if the movie is funny, which it sort of is, sometimes, I guess. It’s Magnum P.I. if Magnum was a moron (Helms even boasts the trademark Selleckian pushbroom ‘stache) and the “P.I.” stood for “politically incorrect.” It’s a nuclear assault of crass dialogue, including fat jokes at Kareem’s expense (he brushes them off) and some (mostly) tasteless and (pretty much) homophobic spiel from the 12-year-old, a master smack-talker who teaches Coffee how gangster-types are intimidated by aggressively “gay” threats (“Mike Tyson is the OG of this shit!”). This type of raunchy-comedy M.O. feels played out now; also dated are quaint scenes featuring pre-coronavirus occurrences such as sneezing in public without getting drawn and quartered and nurses enjoying work breaks. Remember when those things happened and it was OK? Was making gay jokes really ever OK?

Our Call: SKIP IT. Coffee and Kareem is more Cop Out than Grosse Pointe Blank.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Coffee & Kareem on Netflix