Screw the haters on NBA players as charismatic leads; those haters usually have not watched the NBA these days. NBA players are more charming, interesting, and better than ever, and have gotten quite good at creating brands and personas. They are more ready than ever to lead a movie. So Kyrie Irving decided to take a shot with Uncle Drew. Per my star score, I know it might seem that I’m contradicting myself, but amongst the many faults of Uncle Drew, the NBA players are not one of them.
Uncle Drew (Kyrie Irving) was a legend on the Rucker Park streetball scene in New York City, until mysterious circumstances made him disappear. Drew resurfaces when he gets recruited to play in the 50th anniversary of the Rucker Classic by Dax (Get Out‘s Lil Rel Howery) who watches him ball. Dax joins Drew on a road trip to get his teammates: Preacher (Chris Webber) and his wife Betty Lou (Lisa Leslie), sharpshooting blind man Lights (Reggie Miller), wheelchaired Boots (Nate Robinson) and requisite love interest, I mean, Boots’s granddaughter Maya (Erica Ash), and karate champion Big Fella (Shaquille O’Neal). Dax needs a win pretty badly, since he just broke up with his girlfriend Jess (Tiffany Haddish) and has been tortured by Mookie (Nick Kroll), who played Dax for a fool back in the day and has been holding court at the Rucker ever since.
Despite this movie’s infuriating safeness (more on that later), the big surprise is just how well the basketball players are with what they are given. The makeup certainly helps, but most of these guys create at least a semblance of a character with the material they are given. I never once thought of Kyrie when watching him be Uncle Drew; he fully committed to the bit, and even pulls some drama out of scenes that upon reflection probably shouldn’t have had any. Reggie Miller, Lisa Leslie, and Shaq are basically who they are in real life, which is fine, because in real life those people are funny and very interesting. Shaq actually carries some of the dramatic weight of the film, and despite how crappy the drama is, his presence alone helps make the scenes work. The surprises are Nate Robinson and Chris Webber. Webber shockingly gets the movies biggest laughs playing a Preacher in a very Evangelical Church. Most of the dialogue in the movie feels improvised, and Webber’s scenes are the most fun. Robinson maybe has 2 lines of dialogue, but under the crazy Frederick Douglass (that joke killed) haircut, he’s got this “dead inside” stair that made me crack up the minute I saw him. I found myself gravitating to his face despite whatever scene he was in because he was always doing something different and interesting. Most actors take years to pull of stuff like that, and here’s hoping this gives Robinson a promising “that guy” career.
During shooting, you would think the filmmakers would have realized all this stuff above, but whether it was their direction or Pepsi’s, the movie surrounds these ball players with seemingly safe choices that just torpedo any chance of Uncle Drew becoming something special. The movie starts out promising, employing ESPN’s documentary style of shooting about Drew at the Rucker. This technique worked VERY well for the music industry, and would have been awesome here. Instead, the movie reveals its true intentions: it’s not a story about Uncle Drew, but a story about Dax. The studio probably thought the safe choice was to make Kyrie the supporting character and Lil Rel the star, since he has movie experience. Couple problems there: 1) Dax’s story is not even remotely interesting until Kroll and Howery are sniping at each other, and even that is infuriating because of the safe kid friendly PG-13, so none of the trash talking will ever be THAT vicious. Great job movie, you neutered Kroll, Howery, and Tiffany Haddish, what a waste. 2). The minute Uncle Drew shows up, Kyrie plays the straight man to Howery’s incredulous Dax, which works very well. So now you’ve got a storytelling problem, which makes any backstory for the other supporting characters hurried or nonexistent (All we know about Lights is that he can’t see anymore), rendering them plot devices, which is the “safe” choice because you don’t know if Nate Robinson, Reggie, or Chris Webber can act. This all culminates in the safest ending possible: can you all guess who’s gonna have to come into the game to and win the Rucker Classic? During this scene, every character just starts talking in cliches to inspire their teammates, which ring super hollow because the movie doesn’t earn any of them through character development. But hey, at least Pepsi doesn’t come out looking bad right?
Uncle Drew’s great for like an 8 year old. You get to watch basketball stars in funny make up lightly trash talk each other and dunk in fun ways. If you’re not an 8 year old, like me, you’re gonna be pissed that Tiffany Haddish, Lil Rel, Howery, and Nick Kroll were used so poorly and that the basketball players didn’t get enough time to prove themselves as legitimate actors. But I am craving a Pepsi now for some reason…