by Adam DiOrio
Due Date, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis, is the latest movie from director Todd Phillips. If his name is unfamiliar to you, his movies surely are not. Phillips is the man behind two of the best comedies of this century (Old School and The Hangover), which puts him in the same class with other great comedy directors Judd Apatow and The Farrelly Brothers.
Due Date is the tale of two men trying to get from the East Coast to California. As the movie begins, Downey’s character Peter Highman is trying to catch a flight to Los Angeles in order to be present for the birth of his first child. At the airport he meets Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis). What seems like a random, one-time meeting of travelers turns into much more, including a series of events that ends with Highman and Tremblay being added to the United States No Fly List. Yet Highman still must get to the West Coast, and it just so happens that aspiring actor Tremblay is heading his way.
Besides his goal of becoming an actor, Tremblay’s other goal on this trip to spread the ashes of his recently deceased father…which is carries with him in a coffee can. He is very eccentric, and his strange ways immediately start to wear thin on his traveling partner. We find out Highman has a slight anger problem, and he quickly develops an inability to deal with Tremblay without becoming extraordinarily angry. This is the driving force of the movie. One stressed-out, soon-to-be-dad who is forced to drive across the country with the man who was responsible for him not being able to fly to Los Angeles in the first place.
Their drive across country is filled with pretty good scenes, both in the car as they’re driving and also when they stop for food or gas. The problem is that the rest of the movie is just okay, and there’s too much time between the scenes that are “pretty good” and the ones that are “just okay.”
Perhaps the reason I was a bit let down by this movie because I had such high hopes for it. Both lead actors can be funny. Galifianakis definitely has moments of comedic brilliance, but those scenes are overshadowed by moments where it seems he is trying too hard. At those times, the jokes seem lazy and half-hearted. In real life Galifianakis seems to be naturally funny, and there is something endearing about him, but in Due Date it feels like he’s not acting natural. He occasionally comes off as a caricature of himself, which is unfortunate because when he is funny, he is really funny. (Check out Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis if you don’t believe me.)
Robert Downey, Jr. is very capable of getting laughs, as anyone who saw him as Kirk Lazarus in 2008′s Tropic Thunder will vouch for. Yet in Due Date, while he does get some of the bigger laughs in the movie, he seems underused.
As is the case with most good comedies, cameo roles help Due Date along to some laughs. Fans of Eastbound & Down will be elated to see Kenny Powers himself as a Western Union employee. Juliette Lewis, who is in many of Phillips movies, gets some laughs as a pot dealer from Craigslist. Another person who is in many of Todd Phillip’s movies? Todd Phillips. Usually he just has a few quick lines, but here he plays a full scene as Juliette Lewis’s roommate.
[revenueshare id="13"]There is one cameo, however, that was very disappointing to me. As a fan of Jamie Foxx from his In Living Color days, I was happy to see him drift back into a comedy after years of serious roles. Sadly, his role in Due Date turned out to be another letdown. His participation in this movie is limited to about 4 minutes, and during that time he couldn’t even manage one laugh from the audience.
As I left the theater, I had mixed feelings. Although reviews from movie critics have been generally negative, audiences seemed to enjoy it. For the weekend it made $32.5 million, coming in second to the animated movie Megamind, with Will Ferrell.
Overall I enjoyed Due Date, but not as much as I wanted to, and not nearly as much as The Hangover. While it is a funny and entertaining movie, it falls short of the bar set by Phillips with his previous work. While my own expectations where not met, they were probably unrealistic to begin with. Keeping that in mind, I still suggest seeing Due Date.
Even though its not a classic, it’s still funny.
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