Review of Get Him to the Greek (2010) by Yvonne C — 26 Jun 2011

How much comedy gold can be mined from the old "sex, drugs and rock-n-roll" cliches? Approximately ten minutes worth, apparently. Russell Brand's dopey yet hyper-sexual/"pseudo Bono"- rock star persona "Aldous Snow" (first seen in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall") has recorded a disasterous pop song about his "inner african child" that's resulted in not only damage to his career but also to his love life with "psuedo-Lady Gaga" singer, Jackie Q. Meanwhile, the recording industry is in a slump and label CEO Sergio (Sean 'PUFF DADDY' Combs) is looking for hot new ideas to generate revenue. One of his employees (Jonah Hill), who also happens to be a super fan of Aldous', pitches the idea of a concert to commemorate the last time Snow was huge in the charts. Puffy agrees and assigns Hill to bring Snow to the Greek Theater for the concert. The rest of the film involves Hill trying to get Aldous to the Greek (hence the title!).

A lot of the comedy in this film comes from the notion that Russell Brand is intrinsically funny, and therefore there is very little need to focus on injecting any actual comedy into the script. It's a shame too, because Russell Brand can be great (as in Forgetting Sarah Marshall), but there has to be some effort put into the writing. Maybe Aldous Snow is better in small doses, like an SNL character, he's just not cut out for his own full length film. I'm not sure what the case is, only that Get Him To The Greek is missing something. Actually, it's a perfectly watchable movie, the premise and the story are fine, it's just a lack of humor that makes it so... blah. Blah. Just all too reminscent of other recent "comedies" (I'm looking at you, "Date Night"), in that somebody forgot to put in the laughs.