Cert 15 93mins Stars 3

Cops and cars cause chaos in this middle of the road mismatched buddy action comedy which never goes full throttle.

Marvel action star Dave Bautista stars as a rule breaking LAPD detective who commandeers Kumail Nanjiani’s Uber taxi to chase down bad guys.

Near blind after eye surgery, the cop is determined to catch the drug dealer who killed his partner, and his obsessive behaviour threatens to thwart the driver’s romantic plans for the evening.

The stars work hard to generate sufficient comedy friction to power the workaday plot, with their banter punctuated by blood-splatting shoot-outs and hard punching fistfights.

Easily the best scene is a shoot-out in an animal hospital where bullets fly to the sound of The Hollies pop song, The Air That I Breathe.

It’s generally not a great advert for LA’s taxi drivers or its police as the pair leave a path of property damage and death in their wake, however there’s a surprising lack of car chases as Nanjiani’s electric car isn’t up to haring around at 100mph in the manner of Steve McQueen in 1968’s car chase classic thriller, Bullit.

Instead the script uses the duo’s generational culture gap to comment on changing ideas of masculinity, while also playfully mocking the conventions of action movies.

A strip club is full of male dancers, which would never have happened to Mel Gibson or Sly Stallone in their all-action heyday.

As Bautista channels old fashioned angry machismo, Nanjiani provides mild mannered metropolitan sensitivity, and both are unable to express their feelings to the women in their lives.

Indonesian action star Iko Uwais, gets to show off some of his intense stunt skills, and Bautista’s co-star Scottish co-star from the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Karen Gillan, appears all too briefly. I wish she’d been allowed to stick around and kick this into a higher gear.