Film Review with Robert Mann – Due Date

9th November 2010

Due Date ***

Last year’s The Hangover was the perfect example of a sleeper hit, a film that came out of nowhere and with just one hilarious trailer and stellar word of mouth became one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the year, hype that promptly turned it into both one of the best reviewed films and one of the biggest box office successes of 2009, even outgrossing some of the year’s biggest blockbuster movies.

Hardly surprising then, that a sequel has been greenlit for release next year. Whether or not that is a good idea remains to be seen but in the meantime The Hangover director Todd Phillips has turned his attention to another comedy and one that on paper seems like it might have what it takes to repeat the humungous success of his last film – Due Date, an American road trip movie in the grand tradition of films like Planes, Trains and Automobiles which unites one of the Hollywood’s hottest movie stars in the form of Robert Downey Jr. (for whom this film is also a reunion with Michelle Monaghan who previously appeared alongside him in 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) with one of America’s hottest comedy talents in the form of Zach Galifianakis. It must also be remembered, however, that Phillips made plenty of other comedies prior to doing ‘The Hangover’ and that his past films such as Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch and School For Scoundrels rarely received the stellar critical reception of his last movie nor the massive box office success. And with Due Date turning out to be a tad underwhelming when compared to The Hangover it does appear that his past films are the rule rather than the exceptions.

Father-to-be Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is hurrying to catch his flight home from Atlanta so he can be with his pregnant wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan), but his best intentions go awry when he encounters an eccentric aspiring actor named Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) at the drop off point outside the airport terminal. A simple accident which sees their bags getting switched gets Peter’s journey off to a horrifying start and things only get worse when he encounters Ethan on the plane and a simple argument gets them both removed and placed on the no fly list. With his money and id still on the plane the increasingly highly-strung Peter is forced to catch a ride with exasperating Ethan and his small dog. But Peter and Ethan don’t make the best travelling companions, and with only five days to get home, will Peter make it? What starts out as a misfortune soon turns into a disaster, resulting in the destruction of numerous cars and quite a few friendships. Keeping on the move with the help of Peter’s long time Darryl (Jamie Foxx) who seems far too close to Peter’s wife for comfort, the mismatched companions fight and bicker along the road on what turns out to be a life-changing journey for everyone…

If you go into Due Date expecting a repeat of The Hangover you may well find yourself in for a pretty big disappointment. This film is not The Hangover – that much you probably expect already but it also proves immensely underwhelming even as a film in its own right. For starters, anything resembling actual plot is virtually non-existent, what plot there is seemingly only existing to link together a series of highly improbably and at the same time rather predictable situations involving the principal characters, situations that often feel shoehorned in without any real relevance to anything that is going on This could be easily forgivable if the film at least proved to be a laugh riot but sadly the humour fails to make you laugh as much as it should. Much of the humour is of the ‘uncomfortable’ variety – Robert Downey Jr. punching a young girl; Robert Downey Jr. spitting on a dog; Robert Downey Jr. getting beaten up by a man in a wheelchair (played by Danny McBride); Zach Galifianakis failing asleep while driving and causing the car to crash; Zach Galifianakis being knocked into air while in the back of a pickup truck, Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis and Jamie Foxx drinking a dead person’s ashes thinking it is coffee; Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis getting stoned and mistakenly heading to Mexico border; Zach Galifianakis acting like a complete idiot; Robert Downey Jr. saying the f word a lot; and more stuff in this vein are what the film delivers in the humour department. Suffice to say, the humour is often very crude and juvenile and, crucially, only occasionally delivers any belly laughs, most of which can, incidentally, be seen in the film’s trailer. What’s more, the dialogue on offer doesn’t really zing enough, the film is often quite gross and all the wit that made The Hangover work so well is entirely absent. On top of this, the film also attempts to move us at times but completely fails to convince in this regard, it never being believable that the two leading characters would ever be real friends, the development of their relationship being hard to buy into. It doesn’t help that the performers themselves prove a tad underwhelming too. While Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis do make for amusing and even endearing double act, proving to a very entertaining combination, individually they don’t really shine that much. Downey Jr. spends most of the film angry and while he does this very well, his performance just seems like something of a letdown when compared with his other recent Hollywood roles. Galifianakis, on the other hand, seems to be getting typecast as playing the stoned out idiot and while he does the part amusingly, there is nothing here that we haven’t really seen before. These complaints, however, are really more down to the way their characters are written than anything to do with the actors themselves. As for the supporting players, both Michelle Monaghan and Jamie Foxx hardly even feature, only being on the screen for a few minutes each and when they are on screen they aren’t given much to do and certainly don’t contribute much to the laughs. And cameo appearances by Danny McBride and Juliette Lewis really add little to the film either. Unfortunately, Due Date is a film that just reeks of wasted potential. It isn’t hard to see how a great comedy could have made out of the concept that is present here but without any truly memorable laugh out loud moments and more of a story around which to frame the humour, this film proves funny but should be so much funnier.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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