Kowalski Is Wrong Again

The most redeeming quality of this film is that it’s already locked up the Oscar for Best Editing by nearly making Jonah Hill look good at basketball.

An extremely cringeworthy shot at a topical, edgy comedy that forgets it has to actually be funny instead of solely sanctimonious, You People features Jonah Hill going against type and trying to play the “grounded”, woke, morally upstanding protagonist in what might be his official peak of self-obsession, which is already a high bar. Remember when he used to just draw giant dicks or when he said he’d release his mentally challenged incest children into the wild? Man, those were the days. The funny part is that Hill already made a better version of this movie with Ice Cube in 22 Jump Street.

Outside of having the blandest romcom framework possible, with 90% of the jokes being just casual riffing (which is admittedly funny at times) and including far too many very specific pop culture references, it’s biggest crime is convincing Eddie Murphy to phone in an abysmally wooden performance when he very well could have been the redeeming factor. Even despite the help of great character actors like Mike Epps, Matt Walsh, or Deon Cole, the film spends the majority of the runtime preaching at the audience things that populate the Twitter accounts of every upper class white person on the planet instead of just, y’know, BEING FUNNY. Or at the very least, contributing something new to the conversation! A fucking A.I. that existed during the last election cycle could’ve generated this movie.

Credit where credit is due, a few parts got great laughs out of me, especially things like Hill trying to psychoanalyze Ni**as in Paris or the suggestion of a Tron-themed wedding or David Duchovny’s (yes, he accepted a paycheck for this too) obsession with Xzibit. Nothing, though, can redeem the 2 hours of Hill screaming through the screen “guys I’m not racist!!!”

Fuck this movie. Why, Eddie? Why??

P.S. If a strange man jumps into my car in the middle of LA, claims he just “thought it was an Uber”, then proceeds to STAY IN THE CAR joking about how sorry he is and how funny the situation is despite me SCREAMING at him to get out, you best believe I’m taking the keys and booking it outta there. Instead, this serves as our “meet cute”.