I can’t say I have ever gone into an Eddie Murphy movie expecting a quality film, and Prime Video’s The Pickup was no different. What I hoped would be a few silly, cheap laughs was 94 minutes of utterly forced comedy, and though I may have laughed once or twice genuinely, the rest was just to mock how truly terrible this film was. Beware, there are spoilers ahead, not that you can’t see the plot points coming a mile away.
I can say the same about Pete Davidson comedies, I suppose, though I find his comedy more tolerable usually. I am aware that it’s bad, but I still enjoy it, if you will. SNL, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Dumb Money, they all worked for me. The Pickup, on the other hand, left Davidson as not just a bumbling fool, but one who is just unlikable.
The Pickup follows two security guards, Russell (Eddie Murphy) and Travis (Pete Davidson), as a group of criminals, led by Zoe (Keke Palmer), attempt to rob them. That is pretty much it. As you can tell by the 94-minute runtime, there isn’t a lot to The Pickup. However, that isn’t to say that they don’t TRY to pack in as much as possible, with very little substance.
“Not only was the writing and delivery poor, but the action itself was disastrous in The Pickup.”
Travis is introduced as a fool who’s seduced by Zoe, unaware that she’s a criminal. The scenes depicting this are uncomfortable at best. Where other films might play up the contrast between characters for laughs, The Pickup tries to treat the romance seriously—and it just doesn’t work. Palmer, who could probably seduce the most wanted men on the planet, ends up looking desperate for… well, Pete Davidson. Don’t get me wrong—there’s a certain charm there, and we’ve seen A-list women pull it off before—but not in The Pickup. Not even close. And somehow, this leads to a romance with no foundation to speak of.
Murphy’s Russell is the straight man in The Pickup, serving as the anchor to Davidson’s chaos. He plays the veteran who follows the rules, takes his job seriously and pulls Travis out of trouble. But the performance feels off—not just because it’s not what we expect from Eddie Murphy, but because it never quite fits the situation. There’s also no believable arc as his character abandons his principles with no real buildup. The Pickup is filled with “Well, I guess that’s happening” moments.
Keke Palmer is perhaps the worst in the film, but I don’t think that is entirely her fault. Sadly, she isn’t believable as a threat to me in the film at all. There is an entire team following her, with wildly expensive cars at her disposal, but none of it feels like she belongs. That being said, it could be because the writing in The Pickup really doesn’t seem like it knows what it wants to be.
“The Pickup wanted to be a chase film, a heist film, a buddy comedy, and a true action flick.”
At times, it feels like a parody of other action flicks, but then there are moments where it feels like they are trying to invoke real empathy and even tears. Palmer’s close-up moment reveals why she is so dead set on this plan, and we were supposed to feel for her. What it got from me was an “Of COURSE she has been planning this moment for twenty years!” in the most sarcastic way possible.
Not only was the writing and delivery poor, but the action itself was disastrous in The Pickup. Chase scenes felt like they wanted to be from Fast and the Furious, but had the budget of a college indie film. Fight scenes looked like the actors had minimal training, and the director gave up and said, “Meh, good enough.”
I feel like I could go on forever about just how much I disliked The Pickup. From the casino robbery that they just seemed to get away with, to Eva Longoria being there for almost no reason, to two real “bad guys” that Russell and Travis stood no chance against, yet beat because they were too dumb to function, The Pickup had a lot of moments they could have taken into real comedy territory.
The Pickup wanted to be a chase film, a heist film, a buddy comedy, and a true action flick. It should have done what Scary Movie did for horror films, play it a little bit more outrageous rather than a little too straight. We could be having a different conversation if that were the case. As it is, The Pickup is my first “must-miss” of 2025, and seven months in, I think it was a pretty good run.
