Coyote vs. Acme — Characters & Cast

Initially professional survival and a shot at relevance; ultimately proving — to Paige, to Crane, and to himself — that he is not the man his career suggests.

Begins as a billboard accident lawyer and himself a casualty of a system designed to reward men like Buddy Crane. Having given up and taken the easy road, he takes the Coyote's case for the wrong reasons and gradually rediscovers, through his client's refusal to stop chasing, the conviction he abandoned. He does not become a great lawyer so much as an unembarrassed one.

Restitution for a lifetime of injuries, and beneath that, recognition: to be treated as someone who was wronged rather than as a joke that landed.

Moves from perpetual victim of ACME's catalog to plaintiff — from an object things happen to into an agent who demands an accounting. Wordless throughout, he expresses everything through pantomime and unquenchable appetite, and his function is less to win than to reactivate the humans around him.

Winning, and the status that winning buys; loyalty to the institution that made him rather than to the friend he outgrew.

Kevin's former ally, now ACME's slick lead counsel — the embodiment of what the profession actually rewards. Cena leans fully into his alpha-male screen presence, and the comic friction between his polish and Forte's flailing gives the film its balance. His trajectory tests whether a man this thoroughly assimilated can be reached.

Wanting her uncle to be worth believing in, and wanting the case to mean something beyond a payday.

Kevin's niece, key to the story and — as critics noted — the film's only major female character. She functions as the emotional stake and moral check, pushing Kevin past his defeatism and holding him to the version of himself he keeps claiming to be.