But then, as if his life could get any worse, Rell gets his adorable new kitten taken away from him during a break-in, which is when he and his cousin Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) go undercover as drug dealers to retrieve him from a dangerous thug named Cheddar (played by Method Man). Let me tell you, MY HEART MAY HAVE LITERALLY EXPLODED IN THE THEATER.
In the film-the pair's first feature-length project since their recently ended Comedy Central Show (RIP)-Jordan Peele plays a sad, recently dumped dude named Rell who finds new life when a cat appears on his doorstep.
Even though the premise makes it seem like Keanu would only hold up as a trailer joke or a short SNL parody, Key and Peele, director Peter Atencio, and Peele's co-writer Alex Rubens have somehow managed to make a full movie out of the ridiculous synopsis about two regular-ass dudes posing as dangerous gangsters to retrieve a kitten. And I'm not sure how much more could be improved from the supposed work in progress. Well, no need to shut the fuck up here, because Keanu is really good-like, way better than it has any right to be. "If you don't like the movie, shut the fuck up," director Peter Atencio jokingly added. "If you don't like it, it's just gonna be John Wick 2," Keegan-Michael Key warned the packed theater at a late-night screening at SXSW last night, adding that since what they were showing was a preview of an unfinished project, what ends up in theaters on April 29 might look a bit different. Except, this is a Key and Peele project, which means the cat doesn't die and smoldering looks from Keanu Reeves are replaced with befuddled ones from the two comedians. "It's like John Wick but with a cat"-that's how I've been describing Keanu, which, as its title makes apparent, is an obvious homage to the Keanu Reeves-starring action thriller about one man's road to extreme vengeance after his dog gets killed.