Review: Cuban Fury (2014)

You might have heard of my love for the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are just amazing in my opinion, and I'm always excited to see something new that they star in. I remember seeing a trailer for Cuban Fury a while ago, and while it wasn't enough to make me dash to the cinema, I still wanted to see it, but at home instead.  I have to agree, I wasn't in a huge rush to see this but glad I did in the end.

Bruce (Nick Frost) and his sister Sam (Olivia Colman) were salsa dancing superstars when they were teenagers, but on the night of a competition, Bruce was beaten up by a gang and it put him off dancing for life. However, when he learns that his new boss Julia (Rashida Jones) is into salsa dancing, he decides it's time to face his fears and start dancing again, before his colleague Drew (Chris O'Dowd) steals her away.

Cuban Fury started off really strong. It told the backstory quickly and efficiently, and set the scene for the present tense with the comedy that I was expecting from Nick Frost. Chris O'Dowd's character was equally great as the annoying colleague.

After the intro, I just got a little bored to be honest. Bruce's friends were a little odd and seemingly pointless to the plot, Drew went from annoying colleague to completely unlikeable douchebag, and Julia annoyed me even more. What sort of boss leads on two of her male employees anyway? My only real source of interest and comedy came from Bejan (Kayvan Novak) who I thought was hilarious. 100% agree, he was by far the highlight of the movie!

I really enjoyed the whole film to be honest, I laughed regularly.  That is until the Dance off which very nearly made me turn the film off, it was too cheesy and false and horribly awkward, I just buried my head in a pillow and asked my cousin to tell me when it was over!  Luckily the scene was saved by an awesome cameo (which may have been the highlight of the whole film!).  The whole storyline was horrendously staged and tweaked to suit the jokes, it was almost like the jokes were written first and then they just came up with any old storyline to fit around them.

The actors were great through, Chris O'Dowd proved he can do rude and arrogant instead of his usual funny laid back guy and Kayvan Novak was amazing and stole every scene he was in.  Rashida Jones can be so much more than this character, who was ridiculous (why is the new boss out drinking, dancing and bowling with her new employees, way to show your authority!) I'm not certain why they made her the new boss in the storyline as opposed to a new colleague which would have made much more sense (maybe there was a boss lady joke they wanted to use!)

I was nearly nodding off, but then Bruce and Drew had a mixture of a fight and a dance off in the car park, nearly got ran over by Simon Pegg (best cameo ever!) and it all got much better from there. Drew got his comeuppance, Bruce completely owned the dance floor, and everyone was happy.

Apart from me. Okay, I was just a bit underwhelmed to be honest. The comedy was great but it just wasn't enough to make me forget the far-too-simple plot and other annoyances. Nick Frost was really good though, so I'm still I saw Cuban Fury. Give it a go if you like, but I'd rather stick Hot Fuzz on.

Considering the characters were pretty shocking (and some completely useless) and the storyline just a bit worse than that, I did still enjoy it.  I laughed a lot and cheered, booed and shouted at the TV numerous times.  Basically, if you watch it, don't think about it and you might be able to enjoy it.