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Bill Murray has a reputation of being difficult to get on to a movie set: difficult to get ahold of, difficult to provide a firm “yes” (or any answer at all), difficult to ensure he’ll make it to shooting, and sometimes difficult to make sure he’ll behave properly once he arrives. But there are times when it seems trickier to coax another Saturday Night Live legend turned beloved movie star into actually showing up for his films. By all accounts, Eddie Murphy will cooperate in the sense of accepting a job (presumably through the traditional channels) and hitting his marks as expected. In the streaming era, he seems downright eager to work, having made half a dozen movies for Amazon and Netflix in as many years. But the movies where Murphy well and truly shows up are fewer and further between. Dolemite Is My Name? He’s there with bells on. That Saturday Night Live hosting gig clearly had his full attention. The Pickup, a heist comedy pairing Murphy with fellow SNL star Pete Davidson, spends its entire 94-minute runtime idling with its door open, waiting for its star to actually jump in.
Murphy plays Russell Pierce, an armored truck driver about to celebrate his anniversary with his wife Natalie (Eva Longoria). Their kids are grown and out of the house, and Natalie wants Russell to finally retire from his high-stress job so they can start up that bed and breakfast they’ve always dreamed of. Russell claims he wants to, but he’s also comfortable in his job. He’s a pro, and secretly apprehensive about making a late-life “pivot,” as the characters say. So in the meantime, Natalie may have to settle for him simply making it to their anniversary dinner on time. He makes this clear when he’s paired with Travis Stolly (Pete Davidson), a sloppy if enthusiastic young co-worker, for the first time. But their day’s run derails thanks to Zoe (Keke Palmer), a vivacious young woman who Travis has recently met and considers a strong romantic prospect. Zoe has other plans for Travis—and for the money his security service is picking up from an Atlantic City casino.
Murphy is basically in the Denzel Washington role from Unstoppable, with Davidson in the Chris Pine part as the mouthy youngster who must prove his worth to the experienced veteran. This would make Palmer the runaway train. All of that sounds good, especially to Davidson, who transfers his obvious glee at sharing scenes with Eddie Murphy into his character’s somewhat less understandable awe at hanging out with Russell. Davidson also does an admirable job at hiding any disappointment over how zipless The Pickup turns out to be.
How did this happen? The cast is sitting right there in the open, a score far easier than any of the movie’s cash. (Well, mostly. Eva Longoria simply isn’t funny. She wasn’t funny attempting self-parody on Only Murders In The Building; she’s not funny as a cutesy fiery-Latina stereotype here.) The obvious conclusion is to blame director Tim Story, a prolific and genre-hopping workhorse whose laboring for affability has become a grim trademark. His best movies, produced two decades apart, are Barbershop and The Blackening, both charming ensemble comedies dependent on cast chemistry. When you’re starring in a Tim Story movie, you can’t assume that spectacle, well-blocked action sequences, or tight pacing will save the day. You have to bring something to it. Murphy does not. He seems perpetually on the verge of quiet-quitting The Pickup, despite his producing credit.
Maybe it’s not fair to blame the biggest star in the cast. But Davidson is far less experienced (and seems far more amped), while Palmer does her best to carry her character’s shameless sympathy-plea backstory. There’s something oddly withholding, meanwhile, about one of the funniest guys of all time resolutely not enlivening a stock older-cranky-guy part. Every 15 minutes or so, Murphy will come briefly to life with an outburst of anger or panic, offering a glimpse of what it might have been like to see him riff more freely with younger folks like Davidson and Palmer, as well as proof that yes, he can still get laughs from something as rote as complaining about back pain or doing a “dorky white guy” voice. These moments are just infrequent enough to feel a little perverse, as if he’s waiting for someone to accidentally utter undisclosed magic words before sharing his gift. Evidently Brett Ratner hit upon them more frequently over a decade ago when making Tower Heist, a similarly slack caper with a much funnier Murphy performance.
Maybe Murphy truly believed in this laugh-deficient screenplay and simply wanted to make a grounded contribution to an entertaining heist thriller, in which case he made a bad bet. The Pickup is entertaining on that most basic of slack-jawed levels: It has likable stars doing movie stuff (car chases, elaborate deceptions) that the movie seems to bank on blurring into memories of other, better capers. This is a film that will appear on a streaming service, looking like a good-enough option for a relaxing night in—and rather than delivering much of anything, everyone involved seems to want a lot of credit just for showing up.
Director: Tim Story
Writers: Matt Mider, Kevin Burrows
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Pete Davidson, Keke Palmer, Eva Longoria
Release Date: August 6, 2025 (Prime Video)
