Next Day Air DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Hilarious Homage to Blaxploitation Genre Released on DVD

This flick is a throwback to the Blaxploitation Era from the 1970s. But where most of those low-budget productions were merely poorly-scripted, sloppily-edited, take-the-money-and-run rip-offs, this homage to that best-forgotten genre is actually a well-executed, comic crime caper.
The story opens in Philadelphia where we meet a couple of drivers for
an overnight delivery service, “Employee of the Month” Eric (Mos Def) and his
hapless counterpart, Leo (Donald Faison). The former doesn’t deserve the
accolade since he wastes too much company time getting high and chasing a
pretty colleague (Lauren London) around the office. The latter, meanwhile, is a
lazy loser who’s on the verge of getting fired by his own mother (Debbie
Allen), the manager of Next Day Air.
The plot thickens the day Lollygagging Leo, under the influence of
weed, accidentally delivers he has no idea is filled with 10 kilos of cocaine to the
wrong apartment. He leaves the package in the hands of Brody (Mike Epps) and
Guch (Wood Harris), small-time crooks who think they’ve died and gone to
heaven. Figuring the that the dope has a street value in the six-figures, they start
making plans to retire by selling it to a local dealer (Omari Hardwick) with a very
menacing henchman (Darius McCrary).
What Brody and Guch don’t know, however, is that the coke was meant
for Jesus (Cisco Reyes), the henpecked Latino who lives just down the hall with
his loudmouthed girlfriend Chita (Yasmin Deliz). For their unassuming neighbor
happens to be a gangsta’ with a Mexican cartel run by Bodega (Emilio Rivera), a
ruthless mobster already on his way to America and determined to retrieve his
contraband come hell or high water.
Taking no prisoners, Bodega retraces the path of his errant parcel, embroiling all of the above in a high body-count affair that’s every bit as funny as it is bloody. Brace yourself for a raunchy brand of humor and for gratuitous gore that can get fairly gruesome.
A screwball splatter flick which might best thought of as a campy cross of Cotton Comes to Harlem and No Country for Old Men.

Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for violence, drug use, pervasive profanity and brief sexuality.
Running time: 84 minutes
Studio: Summit Entertainment
DVD Extras: Outtakes and a director’s audio commentary.