The latest project by the eponymous stars and creators of Comedy Central’s hilarious Key and Peele is named after a kitten. Rather, Keanu is a movie about a kitten named after surfer-dude action star Keanu Reeves. This mashup of cuteness-meets-mayhem perfectly encapsulates both the kitten and the movie, which combines Key and Peele’s comedic takes on race and cultural limbo with their love of action movies in a film that lovingly plays off the over-the-top genre.
Key and Peele play best friends on different paths. Clarence (Key) is an uptight father and husband who only lets his guard down to sing George Michael’s “Faith” in his minivan. Rell (Peele) is an action-movie-loving stoner who wallows in the extra laziness afforded to him by a recent breakup. When a drug dealer’s adorable kitten finds its way onto Rell’s doorstep, it turns his life around, and when the newly dubbed Keanu is later taken from him, Rell vows to take him back.
Clarence and Rell’s quest to retrieve Keanu provides the main fish-out-of-water conceit of the film; the running joke is that these two relative squares must infiltrate the world of gangs and violence by pretending to be drug dealers, and even two mythical, feared assassins. Their on-a-dime code switching is both funny and real, but like their TV show, Keanu scratches the surface issues of having to be a cultural chameleon while choosing to remain, first and foremost, a comedy.
Key and Peele’s familiarity and chemistry carry the film. Whether discussing their love of Liam Neesons (a mispronunciation carried over from their show) or how best to address, or not address, a strip club patron’s facial tattoos, Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key’s comedic camaraderie feels akin to that of Rogen and Franco, of Pegg and Frost. The supporting cast is great as well. Tiffany Haddish as Hi-C is street-tough and cool, while Method Man plays the opposite of the kitten Keanu, a feared and imposing gang leader with the cutesy name of Cheddar. Will Forte plays small-time weed dealer Hulka, whose cornrows and beard fail to make him look as tough as he sees himself.
If there are any downsides to Keanu, it’s a slow middle, and though it was written and directed by veterans of their show, it could have used someone with a better sense for filming action sequences. This isn’t to say that the The Matrix and John Woo references weren’t hilarious, I just wish there had been more like them.
