We desperately need comedy in this lockdown world, which is why I had hopes that Netflix original, “Coffee and Kareem,” would tickle my fancy and make me forget, for just a few hours, about the apocalyptic world we’re living in. Turns out, this lame-duck vehicle, starring Ed Helms, Taraji P. Henson, and Betty Gilpin, wasn’t the comfort food I was looking for.
Directed with no flair whatsoever by Michael Dowse (“Goon,” “It’s All Gone Pete Tong,” “Stuber”), the film has annoying-as-fuck 12-year-old Kareem Manning (Terrence Little Gardenhigh) catching his widowed mom Vanessa (Henson) and limpdick Detroit PD officer James Coffee (Helms) having “old people sex.” Kareem is so angry that he actually offers his monthly allowance to a Detroit gangster to “ice” Coffee. Once the hit goes bust, Coffee and Kareem end up running for their lives, chased by not just these hoodlums but also by a corrupt Detroit PD in cahoots with the bad guys.
What follows are homophobic jokes and lame car chase sequences. It’s the buddy comedy we never needed. It doesn’t help that Kareem, one of the most annoying child characters in recent memory, keeps raining down a world of threats on Coffee. It’s not that Gardenhigh is a bad actor, but the lines he is given by screenwriter Shane Mack are offensively bland — at some point, you just wish someone would slap this kid silly. [D-]