Keanu (2016)

As fans of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Jack and I laughed a lot in this violent slapstick about two suburban guys posing as drug lords in order to retrieve a stolen kitten named Keanu. Key (covered in these pages in Tomorrowland) and his comedy partner Peele just ended their fabulous Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele and I recommend you seek it out when it's released on DVD August 2. On that show they introduced Key's character Luther, Obama's "Anger Translator," to Peele's excellent Obama impersonation. Here's my favorite clip. Luther was so successful that the President invited him to last year's White House Correspondent's Dinner. Even if you never click through on this blog, you should watch these two clips. You can also read these fascinating articles (one, two) about the men, who are both bi-racial and bring up the subject of race in almost every sketch. Another of our favorite K&P clips, The Pirate Chantey, however, is about sexism instead.

Included in the cast are Method Man (a musician in Wu-Tang Clan, among others) as Cheddar (as it happens, the actor's part in The Wire was named Cheese), Jason Mitchell (played Eazy-E in the NWA bio-pic Straight Outta Compton and the NWA song F##k tha Police is in this movie) as Bud, Will Forte (profiled in Nebraska before his 30 episodes of Last Man on Earth) as a white drug dealer, and the reliable Luis Guzmán (among his many credits I'll mention Carlito's Way (1993), Out of Sight (1998), The Limey (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Anger Management (2003), Fast Food Nation (2006), and We're the Millers; he was also in the award-winning ensembles of Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), and Traffic (2000)). Oh, and when the kitten speaks in the dream sequence, guess who provides the voice? You can do it.

The many pop songs are listed and can be streamed here. They supplement a score by Steve Jablonsky (profiled in Gangster Squad) and Nathan Whitehead (new to me).

Rated 78 and 67% by Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, this looks like it will be gone from big screens in these parts after Thursday. You'll be fine waiting for the DVD, also estimated for an August release. Knowing the creativity of these stars, I won't be surprised if the DVD has all kinds of fun extras anyway. In whatever format you see it, be sure to wait for the bonus at the very end.

Update March 2017: I'm laughing at myself that I completely omitted the writers and director when I wrote about this in May 2016. Peele co-wrote the script with Alex Rubens, and Peter Atencio directed. All three performed the same duties on all 54 episodes of Key & Peele, and Atencio has about two dozen other credits.