Get Him to the Greek

(2010)

Directed by

Nicholas Stoller

Review by Todd Plucknett

Posted - 6/13/10

Going into Get Him to the Greek, the spinoff of sorts from 2008’s surprise hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I had mixed feelings. I was not the biggest fan of the previous film, also directed by Nicholas Stoller, but I did find it entertaining and funny enough to warrant a recommendation. Most of the funny parts revolved around Aldous Snow, a British rock star played by Russell Brand. His character is the basis for Greek, and no one could be as surprised as me that it turned out this badly.

Record company intern and huge Aldous Snow fan Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) is given the assignment of going to the UK to find Snow and bring him back to America for a couple gigs. The first one is an interview and performance on the Today Show, and the second is a huge 10 year anniversary concert at the Greek Theater in LA. From the first time they meet, there are obvious issues. Snow’s arrogant and carefree attitude completely clashes with Green’s determination to get the raise he was offered for successfully completing the task, while having his boss (P. Diddy) in his ear every two minutes for not being on time. This leads to unexpected detours in the route back to LA in familiar and mostly unfunny ways. It all winds up exactly where you’d expect, but you already know that going in. It is supposed to be all about this crazy road trip, but anyone who has seen a decent amount of movies will recognize the familiar plot devices and cause them to brush off so many of the uninspired gags.

The first issue I had with this picture is that the main character is simply not that funny. I thought it could be hilarious to watch him for two hours, since his refreshing character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall provided so many gut-busting laughs. I have since realized that he was not what made his part funny. It was the atmosphere. It was Jason Segel’s writing and witty characters that made his strange entrances into the story so hilarious. In Greek, his character seems so empty. In that way, it is a lot like Bruno. It is nowhere near as repulsively bad, but the character similarities are there. It basically turns into the one-man Jonah Hill show. That would normally be fine with me, but they basically just beat him up for two hours. I love Hill, but some of those sight gags were just disgusting. Why couldn’t Segel have returned as writer?

Throughout the movie, Snow continually wanted to stop, party, and/or score some drugs. Green keeps pushing him to get back on the road. Snow began to think that perhaps Green was looking after him, but his own selfish motivations were what made him so anxious. This sounds a lot like My Date with the President’s Daughter. Basically the entire film is in this light. The further along it goes, the more messed up Snow gets, and Green becomes more of an annoying jerk. My patience began to wear soon after the second or third detour into stupidity.

On their journey back to LA, of course they had to stop in Vegas. A lot like The Hangover, this is where it completely unravels. There are a couple ridiculous scenes that will undoubtedly bring to mind that overrated trashy comedy hit of last year. Also, there is a part when Green tries to heal the relationships between Snow and his father (Colm Meaney) and Snow and the mother of his child (Rose Byrne). At this point, Green has basically become a protégé to Snow, which is almost the exact same dynamic as Funny People. It does not work at all here, though. All of these side stories just seem so tacked on. I just pray that there was not another sequel in mind.

There are a couple more elements almost completely stolen from other films as well. First, Snow goes to Green’s place in LA, where there was just a fight between Green and his wife (Elisabeth Moss) about him cheating on the cross-world trip. Snow comes in and suggests that they all have a threesome, when you know he is just trying to strengthen the bond between those two in the process. Chasing Amy anyone? The scene is even shot in the same manner. Oh yeah, and it actually happens... Also, perhaps the most obvious scene larceny is when Snow is drugged on the roof of an apartment with a bunch of drunken fans below telling him to jump into the pool. Of course Green is in the crowd pleading for him to not jump and for them to leave. Yeah, it is totally a textbook Almost Famous rip-off.

 Now, if one of these “coincidences” was present, I would not have much of an issue. But the fact that there are so many obviously stolen scenes, I cannot figure it out. Were these meant to be paying tribute to this completely random bunch of films? Was Stoller just so desperate for material that he could not find any other way to tell his mess of a story? Your guess is as good as mine. It just does not add up. It is almost like an extended sketch rather than a fully-developed movie.

The acting in the film is solid. Russell Brand is what his part asks for, and he plays the part credibly. Jonah Hill probably gave his most complete performance since Superbad. Elisabeth Moss has some good moments. Rose Byrne is always interesting. Seeing Lars Ulrich made my day. It destroys last year’s Mike Tyson cameo. The biggest disappointment was definitely P. Diddy. The man has real acting talent (see Monsters Ball if you don’t agree). Here, however, he was terrible. Nothing he did or said was believable. He repeated the same stupid lines over and over. He was the most irritating character I have seen this year. It was probably mostly the writing, but either way, it was excruciating. It was almost like he was trying to become this year’s Les Grossman or something, but without the material or comic timing.

Overall, the movie is fairly standard summer trash. There are a bunch of laughs. That goes without saying. The songs are good, but none of the dozen or so original songs top “Inside of You”. Jonah Hill’s presence alone makes this movie more bearable than most other bad comedies that get released. A handful of critics are saying that this may well be this year’s The Hangover. No… it’s not quite that bad. This one established its tone as being a raunchy, stupid entertainment early on, and it stuck to it. It crashed and burned about halfway through, but it was still faithful to its ambition. It did not have the intense and off-putting mood swings that The Hangover did. It does feel similarly overlong and poorly-focused, though. If this wins Best Comedy/Musical at the Globes like The Hangover miraculously stole last year, all credibility for the HFPA will obviously be diminished.

I have certainly seen worse films than Get Him to the Greek. I just get frustrated when a film has hype and great potential and completely blows it. This could have been really fun and interesting. It just too often played to conventions and gross-outs rather than character development and humorous dialogue. There is a line late in the film where Snow says something to the extent of, “This is what it is like to be on the road as a rock star.” There cannot be any truth in that. Aldous Snow is fiction. I cannot think of any musician who could ever be compared to him. If there was any authenticity in that character, then maybe I would have responded differently.

If you liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you are probably going to see this anyway. Do so with your expectations in check. If you did not like it, do not come close to this one. If you have not seen it, go watch it, then spare yourself and skip this one. I cannot understand how this is getting such high remarks from critics. I realize that I am more critical of comedies than almost anyone else, but there are just too many gags and too little intelligence here for it to come close to a recommendation. It is movies like this that really raise the question of whether or not anyone besides Judd Apatow can make a raunchy comedy without making the audience dumber while watching it. If this film is any indication (being made by some of the Apatow students), the answer is a definitive NO.

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