The Pickup is an average action-comedy that tries to mix buddy cop hijinks with high-stake heist action, but fails to establish its own uniqueness. The movie opens with a standard cliche – two incompatible armored truck drivers thrust into a nightmare at the end of a regular cash pickup into a lethal chase – but it never really goes above and beyond typical genre tropes. Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson infuse their characters of Russell and Travis with some charm and humor respectively and their opposing characters bring some light moments in the storm. Nonetheless, even with this, the movie is based mostly on clichés and cliche plot progressions making it not quite as effective.
The direction of Tim Story is serviceable but not spectacular, it does not have the grandiose or the energy that would make the action scenes shine. The armored car chase has been well developed but much of the action in the film is generic and forgettable. Written by Matt Mider and Kevin Burrows, the screenplay is not focused and tries to not only celebrate classic buddy cop movies but is also influenced by heist movies such as “Heat” and The Town. Unluckily, this flood of influence has led to a crammed narrative that appears overstuffed and imbalanced, even in the third act where the twists and turns began to look contrived and convoluted.
What struck me most of all was the chemistry of the cast and the timing of individual jokes, which makes the content a bit higher. The presence of veteran charisma by Murphy and comic awkwardness by Davidson makes the two an interesting match although the script fails to do enough to deepen the characters. On the whole, The Pickup is a film worth watching but forgetting- a good film to passively watch but with not enough originality and a cliché-filled script that is attempting to do too much. It is a typical buddy cop adventure that makes you wish it was more personality filled and executed better.
