Warner Bros. Pictures
When Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele decided to end their Comedy Central series, many thought it was the end of their comedy partnership, but here they are now on the big screen as a modern day Laurel & Hardy/Bing & Bob/Abbott & Costello/Martin & Lewis comedy duo with their hilarious Keanu … and they’ve allowed themselves to be completely overshadowed by the cutest kitten you’ve ever seen. Well, maybe not completely, but anytime the critter is on screen, that’s all you can focus on. Because he’s so damned cute!
The story opens in an illicit drug-making facility that comes under attack by two pretty scary dudes known as The Allentown Brothers. The kingpin of the facility is the owner of the kitten (whose name we later learn is Iglesia), which makes tracks out of the place while the Brothers are busy killing everyone. But they also came under the kitten’s charms and want him for their own.
Said kitten wanders the streets until he happens upon the home of Rell Williams (Peele), a photographer/pot head whose girlfriend just left him … because he smokes too much pot. His friend Clarence (Key) is on the way to console him when the kitten shows up like a miracle from Heaven, quickly charming Rell with his adorableness and sparking some creative juices that he thought was lost by creating a calendar featuring the kitten, now named Keanu, re-enacting famous scenes from movies (we see him setting up the famous “Here’s Johnny” shot from The Shining which is pretty funny).
While Clarence’s wife is out of town with her daughter on a weekend trip with family friends (and suspiciously, the wife was suddenly unable to make the trip), he decides to take his wife’s advice and “do him” while she’s away instead of being what everyone else wants him to be. Rell and Clarence hit the town but when they return, Rell’s home has been ransacked and Keanu is gone, setting up the one long night of their lives pretending to be the Allentown Brothers in order to fit in with a drug gang led by Cheddar (Mehtod Man), who is now in possession of the kitten, now named New Jack. The pair have to show Cheddar’s posse how to really make a deal (including one with a famous actress playing herself, but we won’t spoil the cameo) in order to get the kitten back. Of course, it doesn’t work out quite as easily as all that, especially when the real Allentown Brothers show up.
Peele and co-writer Alex Rubens have crafted a very consistently funny screenplay that riffs on movies like New Jack City and Heat, and even by placing the two lead characters in a pretty unbelievable situation, Key and Peele actually make it work. Key, especially, has the more demanding role as he has to go from, as Rell puts it, “Richard Pryor doing an impression of a white person” to full-on, badass gangsta … while wearing khakis, a plaid shirt and a windbreaker. Rell is a little more “street” so he guides Clarence, but then loses control of him as he begins to enjoy a little too much the time spent with their new “friends.” He also gets to be front and center in a hallucinatory segment (featuring a couple of celeb cameos of sorts) after he accidentally smokes some of the drug they’ve been selling.
The gang members that Clarence and Rell are partnered with are all played to perfection as well, eager to learn everything the “Brothers” have to show them. Which isn’t much but, Clarence manages to convince his new posse that one particularly white singer is actually black by analyzing the lyrics of Clarence’s favorite song. Darrell Britt-Gibson, Jason Mitchell and Jamar Malachi Neighbors give each of their characters their own personalities, winning the audience over even as they’re involved in a massive shoot-out. Tiffany Haddish plays Hi-C, Cheddar’s right hand who accompanies Rell on the drug deal with the actress that goes horribly, hilariously wrong. Haddish has a real presence on screen that makes it hard for you to take your eyes off of her, and it’s easy to see why Rell begins to fall for her. Haddish, known for her TV roles on Real Husbands of Hollywood and The Carmichael Show, may have finally found her breakout movie role here.
But, as good as all the actors are, the real star of the movie is the kitten. He squeaks adorably, he gets gangsta’d up and wears it well, he runs and jumps through gun fire, and he saves Rell’s ass on more than one occasion thanks to the training instilled in him during their short time together before the cat-napping. The cat is amazing and apparently none of its actions are CGI’d, so that makes his performance even more impressive. Thankfully, the story never puts the cat in any mortal danger because audiences always care more about the safety of an animal in a movie than they do the human characters. If at any time that cat had been mistreated, they would have lost the audience and the filmmakers wisely avoided that pitfall.
Director Peter Atencio pulls off a major feat with his first feature film by working with a animal, but the terrific script and a seasoned cast willing to go all out for a laugh without ever “winking at the camera” makes Keanu a great accomplishment for everyone, and one of the most consistently funny comedies so far this year. If you’re a Key & Peele fan or just love adorable kittens, then this is the movie for you!
Keanu has a run time of 1 hour 40 minute, and is rated R for violence, language throughout, drug use and sexuality/nudity.
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