On their Comedy Central television show, the duo Key and Peele performs a series of sketches about President Obama. Informally called “Obama Loses His Shit,” the sketch’s basic premise is this: Jordan Peele, the subtler of the two performers, plays Obama, who is giving his weekly address. As he speaks, outlining various concerns while staring straight at the camera, an “anger translator” named Luther, played by Keegan-Michael Key, more emotional and lively, stands beside him and speaks, often yells, the true meaning behind the words. An example: Obama, addressing his critics, tells them, “I hear your voices and I’m aware of your concerns.” To which Luther adds, wilding gesticulating, “So maybe if you could chill the hell out for like a second maybe I could focus on some shit! You know?”This dynamic is central to many of Key and Peele’s sketches, and it’s part of what makes their work so exciting and funny. They take a classic comedic premise, the reversal of roles, and employ it to moments that speak to deeply embedded feelings surrounding race and masculinity. The duo expands on this theme in their new film, “Keanu,” which opened in theaters on April 28. Essentially a film about the complications of black machismo wrapped up in an action comedy about a lost cat and a gang of drug dealers, it successfully translates what often works in their short, highly-polished sketches into something more engaging and even funnier.When the film opens, Rell (Peele) has just broken up with his girlfriend. Sitting on his couch smoking pot, he complains to his cousin Clarence (Key) on the phone about his life. Clarence, a mini-van driving husband with a teenage daughter, tells him he is on his way over. But before he arrives, something else scratches at Rell’s door — a kitten, whose presence is quickly taken as a sign that life is not meaningless, and soon after is named Keanu.Over the next two weeks, Rell begins devoting all his time to the cat, who takes the place of his girlfriend. When Clarence, whose wife and daughter have gone away for the weekend, makes a plan with Rell to go to a movie starring Liam Neeson (a nod to one of their other popular sketches), they return to Rell’s apartment to find it has been ransacked and Keanu is missing.This sets the stage for the film, which plays out like a series of interconnected sketches. The kitten, as the audience is already aware from a violent prologue, once belonged to a now deceased drug dealer who was killed by a mysterious duo named the Allentown Brothers (also played by Key and Peele). When Rell and Clarence discover that Keanu is now in the possession of another local drug dealer named Cheddar (Method Man), they attempt to visit him at the strip club he owns. Having to act the part of gangsters as not to reveal their true nervous identities, they are confused by Cheddar for the Allentown Brothers and are convinced to help make a drug delivery in exchange for the kitten.Much of the comedy for the rest of the film deals with these kind of role reversals. Rell and Clarence have to act on the fly, and begin to mix their real identity with the harder, fake roles they are playing. In one scene, while Rell and a member of Cheddar’s team make a drug deal to the actress Anna Farris (playing a coked-up version of herself), Clarence stays in the car with the other members keeping lookout. One of them picks up Clarence’s iPhone to play some music and turns on George Michael’s “Faith.” The group begins to question Clarence on the music, and he makes up a story about how George Michael once killed his former partner in Wham! Soon enough, the group starts to appreciate the pop star’s songs, and they all begin singing, and crying, all while a shootout is happening 50 feet away from them.A joke like this — and there are many in the film — doesn’t work unless it is rooted in emotional truth. And like the best of Key and Peele’s sketches, which often take a simple joke and twist it around, “Keanu” uses its jokes to capture something that is stinging about cultural stereotypes and how we adopt roles. But the film never focuses on a single idea — it’s always in service of the joke, and is better for it.
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