Review of Due Date (2010) by Andrew D — 31 Dec 2011

Director Todd Phillips and his triumvirate of scenarists-Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, and Adam Sztykiel-have decided to leave almost nothing out of "Due Date," thereby leaving a bad aftertaste in the mind from all of the clumsily executed, off-color attempts at humor. Although Phillips' "The Hangover" was decidedly raunchy (and incredibly overrated), it at least constructed the action around the mysterious events of the boys' previous night out, allowing even the zaniest moments of humor to remain relevant to their struggle of regaining memory. Here the humor is much too sporadic, with overly puerile gags, regardless of their relevance to the story, thrown into the mix solely to see if they'll nab an extra chortle or two from any seventh graders among the audience.

As many have observed, "Due Date" lifts its plot straight from the John Hughes favorite, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" (1987). The difference being, of course, that the Hughes picture is actually a minor comedy classic, a status "Due Date" cannot hope to achieve. Robert Downey Jr. plays Peter Highman, a very serious, orderly, and punctual architect whose wife is due to have a baby within a few days time. Peter has to make it all the way to Los Angeles, and so decides to take a plane. He soon meets an aspiring actor, Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis), an overweight, hirsute and curiously androgynous buffoon. After being kicked off his flight because of Ethan's eccentric behavior-in a scene totally cribbed from "Meet the Parents"-Peter is forced to find a new way to Los Angeles. Can you guess what happens? Yep, Ethan, the kind-hearted imbecile that he is, decides to give Peter a ride all the way to California.

It's all an excuse to put our odd couple in another unwanted buddy-road movie, loaded to the brim with all the usual misadventures. The movie makes Galifianakis's character way too weird, and by the time the obligatory "gee-now-we're-best-friends-for-life" moment comes at the end, we have such an aversion to this creep that we wonder how a smart guy like Peter could do anything but turn him in to the nearest insane asylum. Since the movie is in the habit of stealing from other movies, I might as well mention that the business about Ethan carrying the ashes of his father in a coffee can is a gag yanked right out of "The Big Lebowski.".

As I said earlier, the movie's humor is too wildly uneven to make this anything but a flabby farce. You know something's wrong when the rest of the audience isn't laughing at a scene, either. For example, there is nothing funny about Ethan masturbating himself to sleep, or the duo's impossible survival of a massive car wreck, or Peter being accidentally shot in the leg with a pistol. In fact, a lot of these painful gags violate one of the essential rules of good farce: if somebody gets seriously injured-from a fall, a punch, a gunshot, etc.-it's not funny. We need reassurance nobody's really going to be hurt, and there always needs to be a somewhat stylized, even Looney Tune-esque comic universe for the characters to exist in if they are going to be subjected to serious harm. If a character is repeatedly smacked on the head Three-Stooges style for being a dummy, it's funny; if it causes internal bleeding requiring hospitalization, it isn't.

The movie also goes wrong by introducing us to Peter's best friend, played by Jamie Foxx. Not only is there no sufficient reason established for his being Peter's best friend, but he is used merely as a plot device for a misleading "twist" at the end of the picture. There are also parts of the movie where the insincere pathos button is pushed one too many times. They actually think we should all feel sorry for Galifiankis's Ethan, a cretinous jerk if there ever was one.

I may be in the minority, but I think Galifiankis was vastly overrated after the release of "The Hangover." He strikes me as another Will Ferrell type who thinks he can just say or do whatever comes to mind for two hours and he has given us another comedy classic. Sorry, doesn't work that way. However, there is one reason I was able to make it through all this insufferable tripe: I got to hear Neil Young singing "Old Man" on the soundtrack. Now that's a classic.

** Two Stars.