The Lovebirds

Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae each deliver some solid laughs, even as The Lovebirds mostly squanders their respective talents.

Amid the constant bickering between their characters in this mediocre romantic comedy from director Michael Showalter (The Big Sick), you wonder what drew the characters to each other in the first place.

They lack sufficient chemistry, adversarial or otherwise, to develop a rooting interest, even as a night of murder and mayhem somehow draws them closer together.

After four years together, it’s clear Jibran (Nanjiani) and Leilani (Rae) are on the verge of parting ways. “I feel like I’m on one page in a book, and you’re reading a magazine,” he explains.

Then an argument on the way to a dinner party winds up with the couple hitting a cyclist with their car, watching him flee the scene, and later finding him dead in an alley.

Figuring they are certain to become suspects, Jibran and Leilani scramble to discover the truth behind the man’s death while simultaneously proving their relative innocence. But that leads them into a dark criminal underworld neither is prepared to handle.

Detachment from reality tends to cancel out the amusing throwaway gags in the breezy yet uneven screenplay by the tandem of Aaron Abrams and Brendan Gall. It features a handful of hilarious one-liners, although the slapstick antics offer more misses than hits.

Meanwhile, the dramatic tension is limited since the screwball plot is driven almost entirely by outrageous coincidences and a lack of common sense. The character quirks are inconsistent, while potentially substantive themes like racial profiling and police coercion aren’t explored in any meaningful way.

Things turn repetitive as Jibran and Leilani encounter more creeps and scoundrels. And despite the constant peril, you know essentially where it’s going — this is a romantic comedy, after all.

Nanjiani (The Big Sick) and Rae (The Photograph) are skilled performers, of course, who play off one another well in a comedic sense and consistently elevate the film’s more freewheeling moments.

It would probably be more enriching to watch the actors team up on “The Amazing Race,” which is the couple’s favorite show. As for The Lovebirds, it might vanish from your memory immediately after the credits roll.

Rated R, 86 minutes.