With his first feature films, Eddie Murphy defined what it meant to bring comedy to live action comedy. Now he’s returning to what he does best in Amazon MGM Studios’ latest film, The Pickup.
Murphy hand-selected fellow Saturday Night Live hosts Keke Palmer and Pete Davidson for his latest project, The Pickup, which is directed by Tim Story and written by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider.
What is ‘The Pickup’ about?
The movie centers on the ultimate heist.
According to an official synopsis: In the action-comedy The Pickup, a routine cash pickup takes a wild turn when two mismatched armored truck drivers, Russell (Murphy) and Travis (Davidson), are ambushed by ruthless criminals led by a savvy mastermind, Zoe (Palmer), with plans that go way beyond the cash cargo. As chaos unfolds around them, the unlikely duo must navigate high-risk danger, clashing personalities, and one very bad day that keeps getting worse
Eva Longoria, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Jack Kesey, Marshawn Lynch and Roman Reigns also star in the film.
“There’s not a secret or a trick to it, it’s just that I’m a funny person all the way down to my core,” Murphy told Blavity’s Shadow and Act when asked when he knows to hold for realness or let the comedy come through.
He added, “I’m funny. So, if you give me the most dramatic script, I’m gonna try to find funny stuff in it. I’m always looking for the joke; it’s just natural. It’s not that I’m always trying to be funny, you know? In fact, [in] my first movie, 48 Hrs., every day, the director would say to me, ‘This isn’t a comedy, Eddie,’ because I was going, ‘Hey, how about this? And wouldn’t it be funny if …’ And he goes, ‘This isn’t a comedy. This is not a comedy. When the movie came out, they were surprised, cut it together, and people were laughing. It was like, what’s going on? That’s the very first action-comedy. Before 48 Hrs., there is no action comedy. That’s the first movie where you’ve got bad guys, cops and serious villains, [but] there’s funny stuff happening too. Then the next one was Beverly Hills Cop. We kind of started the action comedy genre.”
Story echoed the sentiment that Murphy, whose portfolio includes classics like Dolemite Is My Name, Harlem Nights, Metro, as well as host of action comedy films, helped to pioneer the genre.
“I grew up on ’80s comedies. The ’80s comedies always had the backdrop of real stakes, and then you threw Eddie Murphy in it, who kind of created this genre, and then all of a sudden, slapstick ensues,” Story told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “But the most important part is that there always is a life-or-death situation. What I try to create is an atmosphere or a set that allows for that exploration — just give the actors what they need and try to set them up so that they can win.”
Tim Story aims to explore with his work as a director
The plot for The Pickup began at a coffee shop meeting between writers Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, during which they observed the guards of a money truck loading the vehicle. They begin to ponder about their lives, noting how they’re often the first to be killed within the first 10 minutes of a heist.
Their curiosity has led to a film where viewers can expect the unexpected, and, as Story puts it, they can be drawn into worlds they are not always privy to.
“I love worlds that I’m not familiar with, or at least I believe the audience is 100% familiar with,” Story said. “To have these workers that you sometimes just see in the background of stories, and also in our lives every now and then, and then we see them in an adventure. That’s just ridiculous. It’s fun. I think it brings to the screen something that I think is unfamiliar to most. It was just really amazing.”
Murphy on picking roles that are realistic for where he’s at in life now
Another central theme of The Pickup is that each of the main characters, portrayed by Murphy, Palmer and Davidson, are willing to do whatever it takes to make their families proud, something that Murphy knows all too well as a proud father of 10.
“It was a natural progression for me to start doing films where my character had a family because I was getting older,” he said. “When I started out at 48 Hrs, Trading Places, and all those early movies…I’m the single guy. Now, I’m a grandad, so I kind of gravitate towards characters that have other dimensions, so I could be playing somebody that seems realistic. As I’ve gotten older, I try to do stuff that seems real. This movie is an action comedy, and I have some sequences in it where I do have action scenes. In the old days, my character would do the scene, and you saw into the next scene. Now, I’ll do a scene, and my character is f**ked up afterwards. I’ll be like, ‘Hey, my leg.’ I blew my back out.’ That’s all, like, real s**t, and that’s all from getting older and trying to make it realistic.”
The Pickup is now streaming on Prime Video.
