Next Day Air 2009

Critics score:
21 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: Boom's comedy is a trap: We like these dudes, and know that while crime does pay, it always takes a deadly cut. Read more

Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies: An amusing tail of incompetent criminals. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Next Day Air is sort of bracing, though it isn't very good: Its total lack of dramatic and comic bearings, to say nothing of a point, keeps you wondering about the next fatality, in a half-interested way. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: A very pleasant surprise, Next Day Air is the rare crime comedy that does justice to both sides of the equation. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: The filmmakers behind Next Day Air probably have posters of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino lining their bedroom walls. Read more

Janice Page, Boston Globe: This is a movie that mines its plot from the Stone Age (or is it Stoned Age?) of caper comedies. Read more

Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times: An ungainly hybrid of stoner comedy and gangsta drama. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Stripped of f-bombs and b-words, Blair Cobb's screenplay could make a fortune- cookie threat. "You will see a bad movie today." Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: First-time feature director Benny Boom and writer Blair Cobbs get a lot of help from their cast, and the banter is often akin to a thug Three Stooges routine. But blood and predictability sour things in the end. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: An uneasy mix of farcical slapstick and comedy of errors with a violent, blood-soaked tale of inner-city crime. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: He may be a first-time feature director, but music video master Benny Boom clearly knows how to pull a midlevel movie together. That's harder than it sounds. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Far from the worst of Taran tino knockoffs, Next Day Air takes the standard formula of dimwits chasing bags of drugs to the 'hood. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The laughs come easily enough. But the violence and grim finale drag this coke-deal-gone-wrong comedy into a hole it can't giggle its way out of. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Next Day Air is a bloody screwball comedy, a film of high spirits. It tells a complicated story with acute timing and clarity, and gives us drug-dealing lowlifes who are almost poetic in their clockwork dialogue. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: Screenwriter Blair Cobbs delivers some good lines, but the inconsistent tone and overacting by some of the lesser actors sabotage his efforts. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A fiasco. A flop. A failure's failure. Next Day Air aims low but still misses the target. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: From the violent opening to the nihilistic ending, Next Day Air is so cynical that its few laughs are a release of tension. Read more

Stephen Garrett, Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Next Day Air can't decide whether it's a broad stoner comedy or a gritty Tarantino-esque action flick. The humor is there, but violence brings the laughter to an abrupt halt. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: An altogether bumbling excuse for an action-comedy. Read more

Michelle Orange, Village Voice: There are no cops, not much farcical energy, and none of the satiric edge it would take to pull off the film's grim denouement. Read more

Dan Kois, Washington Post: In the end, it's a fitfully amusing, sloppy comedy that doesn't work very hard for your 10 bucks. Read more