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Sunday, November 7, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Due Date
Road Trip Remodeling,
Bromance And Pregnant Pauses
Robert Downey Jr. as Peter and Zach Galafianakis as Ethan in "Due Date",
directed by Todd Phillips.
Warner Brothers
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Sunday,
November 7, 2010
"The Hangover" was a fresh, fast and funny road
trip comedy that laughed all the way bank last year, but Todd Phillips' latest
comedy "Due Date" is a road trip film that is more pedestrian, with far fewer
laughs.
"Due Date", which opened this past Friday across the U.S. and Canada, is a
stale, not fine "bromance". Mr. Phillips again employs a "get me to the
church on time" formula, this time for Peter (Robert Downey Jr.), an uptight
architect traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles hoping to arrive home in time
for the birth of his wife's first child.
The trip from south to west won't be easy for Peter, as the flamboyant Ethan
("Hangover" star Zach Galafianakis) will attest. The latter is an aspiring
Hollywood star actor. Tinseltown is his destination. This updated
odd couple for a new century will be forced to co-exist and endure each other as
long as they can get to Southern California.
Mr. Phillips' "Due Date" fails its own endurance test, suffering from a lethargy
and dryness that's as arid as the Arizona heat. Mr. Phillips works harder
to generate laughs, even though he has two top-flight talents in Mr. Downey and
Mr. Galafianakis, both of whom have fared better. They could easily play
each other's role in the film, which might have been smarter and funnier without
the lazy and sometimes tedious, outrageous attempts to get laughs that have been
borrowed from a hundred other inferior movies.
The script, by four writers including the director, stagnates.
Occasionally empty spaces exist in the narrative where you feel the film is at a
standstill, either waiting or hoping for something to happen to jumpstart it.
Monologues, visions and other wasted opportunities fill these spaces, instead of
the spontaneity of Mr. Phillips' "The Hangover". (Apparently the director
has a thing for the theft of police vehicles in his films.) "Due Date"
also has its fair share of in-jokes, some of which are references to the past
struggles of one of its stars. Even if they aren't intended, the effect is
ironic.
One theme that Mr. Phillips, who is currently shooting "The Hangover 2", plays
up in a comedic way -- with mixed results -- is white male anxiety about, or
fear of, black men. In "The Hangover" it was discovering that a would-be
kidnapped friend, Doug, was in fact a black man with the same name. In
"Due Date" it is a fear that the baby Peter's wife (Michelle Monaghan) gives
birth to will be black. The late Richard Pryor may have loved this brand
of comedy but would he have laughed very hard at Mr. Phillips' comedic homage?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Overall, audiences will laugh sporadically but the reality is that "Due Date"
has an early expiration, repeatedly hitting a brick wall.
With: Jamie Foxx, Danny McBride, Juliette Lewis, RZA, Bobby Tisdale, Todd
Phillips.
"Due Date" is rated R by the Motion
Picture Association Of America for language, drug use and sexual content.
The film's running time is one hour and 40 minutes.
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