Immature arrival

Now that it's Thanksgiving break, I'm able to catch up on my blogging and that includes a couple of movie reviews; first up, the latest Todd Phillips' comedy, Due Date. Phillips' who's on a roll coming off the success of The Hangover, set himself up nicely for this follow up by pairing Zack Galifianakis with Robert Downey Jr. Unfortunately, it seems he felt that this dream team was enough and not enough attention was spent on the story or humor.

The film is basically a retread of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. In this case, Peter Highman (Downey) is trying to head back to L.A. from Atlanta for the birth of his first kid. However, a meeting with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis), causes him to be kicked off his plane and placed on the no-fly list. The two then decide to travel by car across the country, all the while Tremblay increasingly annoys Peter with his antics and mannerisms.

How much mileage, no pun intended, you get out of this sort of plot will vary. You have to tow the line of having the antagonist be annoying enough to justify the victim's frustration, but still sympathetic in order to prevent the audience from turning on the character too. In this case, Galfianakis doesn't quite evoke the same pathos that Candy did (a dead wife trumps a dead father in this case), but he's a strong enough comedian to make you laugh at most of what he does, rather than detest the character.

Due Date certainly has a familiar feel, but it's not just because its using a borrowed plot. I also felt like I had seen this movie already because of the volume of commercials and ads that there were for it before its release. As a result of their aggressive ad campaign, there were very few scenes in this film that I had not already seen that were also laugh out loud funny. That's a depressing feeling because you just sit there and you begin to recite the lines with the actors and also identify which scene comes next. If you feel like you have seen a lot of commercials for this film, I may recommend you pass on seeing it; you've already gotten most of the jokes for free.

The fact that most of the jokes were shown on regular television also tells you that the humor here isn't as edgy as in some of Phillips' other films. That is certainly disappointing as I felt that having this pairing of actors would have lent itself nicely to some good blue humor. That is not to say the movie doesn't have its laughs; it is just that you can't expect this to appeal to the same audience that fell in love with The Hangover, Old School, or Road Trip.

Truthfully, if this film didn't star Downey and Galifianakis, it would be a severly underwhelming film. These two, however, have both the acting chops and comedic time to milk the most out of this material. If you're being asked to go for a long drive, then you want to make sure you enjoy your passengers. These guys qualify for that and so that makes this a bit more tolerable. Still, you would have hoped that they could have given these guys more to work with instead of relying on their talents.

Due Date is not a bad film, but its certainly a flawed film. You're likely to get some laughs out of it, but not as many as you would hope. While this is not Todd Phillips' worst film (that would likely be School For Scoundrels), it falls short of being included with some of his modern classics. You may give this a look, but as we near Thanksgiving, you are probably better off revisiting Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and watch how an unlikely pair of travelers can make an uncomfortable ride a lot of fun. Grade: B-