As Leo in Next Day Air (Summit), Donald Faison is too high to get his job done, but he tries anyway. A stoned deliveryman, Leo mistakenly stumbles past the apartment where a shipment of cocaine scheduled to be delivered to a Hispanic dealer—Jesus, played by Cisco Reyes—and instead drops it off with the neighbors next door.
Enter cousins Brody (Mike Epps) and Guch (Wood Harris), two bumbling crooks who pass their time arguing over how botched robberies should’ve gone and playing X-Box. These are the types of dudes who, when they receive Leo’s special delivery, are instantly convinced that their fortunes are made—calling up strippers to celebrate and planning to buy an Escalade as soon as they can move the coke.
Of course Jesus’ future fantasies don’t necessarily involve the cousins getting rich, and to that end, he sets out to find Leo, who quickly sobers up and sets out to trace the most important tracking number of his life. The lighthearted coke-deal-gone-wrong storyline quickly begins careening toward a trigger-happy conclusion, not unlike last year’s similarly-themed hit, Pineapple Express (Columbia Pictures).
Next Day Air marks the feature length directorial debut of acclaimed music video director Benny Boom (Ciara's "Goodies" and "1, 2 Step," Busta Rhyme's "Touch It," and T-Pain's "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')," among others. Working with a limited budget—the film was shot for $3 million, and funded by a team of investors including Paramount and Shaun Livingston of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder—Boom delivers a crisp film, carried by a simple, yet effective storyline, and a capable cast. Epps’ humor is both slapstick and witty while Harris, best known as Avon Barsdale from his stint on HBO’s The Wire and Faison, known for his role as Turk on NBC’s Scrubs, help strengthen a movie that would have been considerably weaker otherwise.
No doubt Star Trek (Paramount) is going to own the weekend, but Next Day Air is a quality package. In fact, if you can beam yourself off the Enterprise, the film’s simple stylings may be just what you ordered after all.
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