What would you say if I told you there was a talented new director that adroitly fuses the best of Guy Ritchie’s frenetic, small-time hoodlum fodder with Quentin Tarantino’s razor sharp wit and pinpoint timing to create something altogether unique and exciting?  Yeah, I wouldn’t believe it either.

Such was clearly the aim of first-time director, Benny Boom known for his work in the hip-hop music video community.  But, the result is a muddled, boring, and rarely funny rip-off of said directors.  Unlike Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, or David Fincher, Boom fails to successfully make the jump from three minute montage to 90 minute feature with a plot and dialogue.

“Next Day Air” stars Donald Faison (“Scrubs”) as Leo, a package delivery man so lazy, irresponsible, and doped-up that his own mother/boss can hardly find the compassion not to fire him. With customers regularly complaining about his tardiness and perpetual intoxication she allows him only one more screw-up before he’s jobless and out on the street.

The threats of unemployment certainly don’t phase the likable underachiever, and in another inebriated stupor, Leo mistakenly delivers a package full of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine bricks to bumbling, small-time thugs (Mike Epps and Wood Harris) instead of the Puerto Rican drug runners down the hall (Cisco Reyes and Yasmin Deliz).

Of course the unexpected boon of illegal drugs triggers cash register ‘cha-ching’ sounds in the minds of the petty crooks, and things inevitably go wrong when they try to cash in on their supposed good fortune.

Boom weaves a scattered tale of misadventure, murder, crime, violence, and greed, but fails to gather everything he scatters.  Sub-plots go nowhere, the jokes are half-baked, and any themes that may have shone through the clutter feel disjointed and poorly thought out.

I wasn’t expecting an esoteric meditation on the abyss of the viscera of humanity, but I was expecting not to be totally and utterly bored for almost the entire duration.  Most of the action is saved for a gruesome blood-bath at the end that feels slopped together, and is completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the film.  And the best part of the movie, the comically talented Mos Def, is hardly in the movie at all as Leo’s package delivery colleague.

“Next Day Air” is the generic cereal at the supermarket.  It’s not as good as the real thing no matter what you’re led to believe.

(1 and a half out of 5 stars)