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Directed By: Todd Philips Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifanakis  I'll begin this review by saying I am big fan of Zach Galifanakis and he's the main reason why I went to see this movie. I love his work and think it's great he's getting so much action in Hollywood nowadays. Due Date is a comedy directed by the same guy who did The Hangover, but its structure and feel are a lot closer to the 1980s comedy classic with Steve Martin and John Candy, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. In that movie, and in this one, an uptight, straight-laced working man (Downey Jr., Martin) is prevented from flying home to see his family and must instead drive cross-country with a heavy-set and annoying yokel (Galifanakis, Candy) for a traveling companion. Crazy adventures, setbacks and betrayals happen along the way as the characters make their journey to the West. Downey Jr. plays an architect trying to get to Los Angeles in time for his pregnant wife's expected due date, while Zach G. plays a struggling actor trying to get to Hollywood (along with his dog Sonny) while mourning the death of his father. The movie uses the format well, placing Downey Jr. and Galifanakis into plenty of uncomfortable situations together. The comedy in this movie is about as raunchy as The Hangover, another Todd Philips movie. Some of the scenes really push the envelope of comedy and I'd be reluctant to post them here just so I don't ruin the jokes. Plenty of eclectic characters join the cast, including Danny McBride as an Iraq war veteran Western Union employee, Juliette Lewis as an Alabama drug dealer, and Jamie Foxx as Downey Jr.'s friend who has a thing for his wife. These secondary characters really breathe some life into the movie's slower parts. But while Planes, Trains and Automobiles had a really good comedy dynamic going on between straight-man Martin and goofy Candy, the same dynamic doesn't work nearly so well for Downey Jr. and Galifanakis. Steve Martin did a great job of playing the uptight rear end in a top hat, but you could empathize with him and even see him coming around. Candy's character may have been a disgusting gently caress-up, but he knew it and his intentions were still well-placed. So as the two went through trials and tribulations, it felt natural that the two would warm to each other through common adversity. In Due Date, Downey Jr. can't decide whether to be an unrelenting rear end in a top hat or a sympathetic ear to Galifanakis and inconsistently wavers between the two, reminiscent of his performance in The Soloist. Galifinakis meanwhile plays a character too oblivious to his own actions to ever come off as good-intentioned, so the most positive feeling Downey Jr. can ever summon for Zach's character is pity. Maybe Downey Jr. wasn't the best opposite for Zach, or maybe he just played the character too straight, but either way the two characters never really connect and it's probably the biggest failing of the movie. This is still a good weekend comedy and I'd certainly recommend seeing it in a full theater. I saw this at a 3:00 matinee with maybe two other people in the theater and a lot of great lines flew over the other audience members, so this could be a fun one with a lot of other people laughing with you. 3/5
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Nov 9, 2010 19:39
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Let me start by saying that while the initial commercials did not seem that great, I typically enjoy the antics of Zach Galifianakis (for the most part) and given Robert Downey Jr.’s recent spate of well-acted and entertaining films, I went into the theater with hopes that this would be on the level of Todd Phillips’ other movies, Old School and The Hangover. However, at one half-chuckle during the entirety of the 100 minute running time, Due Date has proven to be quite possibly the least funny “comedy” I’ve ever seen. The film’s premise is that up-tight architect Peter Highman (Downey Jr.) needs to get from Atlanta to Los Angeles within a few days to be present for his wife’s C-section and the birth of his first child and this seemingly easy task is hindered by aspiring actor and all around boorish Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis). Ethan’s annoying eccentricities and Asperger’s-like inability to understand even basic social conventions cause both him and Peter to be ejected from their flight and Peter is subsequently forced to drive cross-country with this wreck of a human-being to beat his deadline. The pairing is clearly intended to be the classic square/slob cliché, where the slob learns to be a bit more responsible and the square learns to loosen up, but the characters are so fundamentally unrelatable and the duo so lacking in chemistry that this dynamic devolves into both actors being complete assholes to each other for most of the film. Several celebrity cameos (RZA, Matt Walsh, Juliette Lewis, Danny McBride and Jamie Foxx) provide welcome relief from watching these two unlikeable douchebags, but they are brief asides and add little value or insight to the characters or plot. Jamie Foxx’s role as Peter’s good friend (and potential cuckolder) was particularly inscrutable as the idea of an affair is completely dropped after about 10 minutes and no character gives it further thought, barring one 2-second attempt at a gag towards the end of the film. Without giving away too much more of the plot, this movie quite literally has all the elements of a hilarious film, without any kind of consistent or rational thread to join them together; it’s as if the writers spent a weekend watching every comedy they could get their hands on, picked their favorite scenes and then jammed them every which-way into a road-trip script. To his credit, Todd Phillips mostly shies away from his typical gross-out humor (although there is a prolonged shot of a dog masturbating) in favor of the awkward, uncomfortable-silence type of comedy seen in The Office, but the slapstick portions that balance out the mix quite frankly aren’t silly enough to be funny and actively detract from the mirth of the situation; instead of laughing that Ethan’s “wackiness” results in their car crashing, I’m wincing that their car has been completely flipped and destroyed, breaking Peter’s arm and injuring the dog sidekick. I was particularly baffled by the movie’s blatant tie-in with Two and a Half Men, but given that I don’t find one iota of that sitcom funny to any degree, perhaps I’m just completely outside the intended audience of this entire enterprise. TLDR: There’s only one joke the entire film and it’s on the audience. 1/5
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Nov 10, 2010 20:26
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I had high hopes for Due Date after having really enjoyed The Hangover, but this movie just didn't work for me. They cribbed the setup from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but pretty much left out everything that made that movie great and replaced it with pot, masturbation jokes, and awkwardness. Galifianakis's Ethan Tremblay is a loser without the lovable (which works when he's a smaller part of a larger cast like in The Hangover, but not so well when he's half of a zany road trip duo), and Downey Jr.’s Peter Highman just comes off as an irredeemable dick with some serious anger-management issues. (Seriously, the guy, who is about to be a father, doesn't last thirty seconds in the same room with a typical bratty eight-year-old before he resorts to gut-punching the kid into submission, and threatening him with further beatings if he doesn't keep his mouth shut.  ). The movie is actually full of moments like that one, events that seem like they were intended to be funny somehow, but really just aren't. Haha, Peter's such a dick that he goaded an air marshal into shooting him! Ethan fell asleep at the wheel and caused a horrific accident that broke Peter's arm, how droll! Oh man, Ethan found a gun in the glove compartment of their stolen border patrol truck and started playing with it and accidentally shot Peter and now Peter's bleeding to death, that's hilarious! There's just no humor in these situations the way they happen, particularly when neither of the characters involved are at all sympathetic. The terrible pacing of the movie doesn't help; the plot just lurches along aimlessly from one bizarre situation to another without any real flow. There are some funny moments here and there, almost all courtesy of the great guest actors (who are all far more entertaining than the main characters), but it's not nearly enough to save the film. 2/5
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Feb 19, 2011 16:11
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The main failing of this movie is that it presented a realistic world in the beginning, but then so many unbelievable things occur as it progresses. How are you to expect that two people and a dog could walk away from the car crash that occurred? Sometimes their actions have consequences, sometimes they don't - the movie certainly would have been bogged down by being more realistic. I don't have a solution and I mostly enjoyed the movie, but it takes me out of it when I have to remind myself "It's a movie, that's why they are not dead or being arrested right now." 3/5
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May 30, 2011 20:15
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