Review - Bobby Belt

   

The group of actors/writers/directors that Judd Apatow has produced have combined to create some of my favorite comedies. Superbad, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People, Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are all movies that I really like. The last of those, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, spawned the latest effort from this comedy group...Get Him to the Greek.

Get Him to the Greek is written and directed by Nicholas Stoller. He directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Get Him to the Greek is a sort of spin off from that movie with the character Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) being carried over into this film which follows Aaron Greene (Jonah Hill) who is an employee at a record label where he's pretty low on the food chain. After coming up with an idea for a 10 year anniversary show for one of the most famous live shows of all time (Aldous Snow, Live from the Greek) Aaron's intimidating boss and record label head Sergio Roma (Sean "P Diddy" Combs) tells him he has 72 hours to fly the washed up rocker from England to the Today Show for an interview and from there, get him to the Greek Theater in Los Angeles for the anniversary show.

Aaron's once in a lifetime opportunity is rained on a little bit when he leaves the country on a sour note after a big fight with his girlfriend, Daphne (Elisabeth Moss). Feeling spiteful towards his girlfriend and not being able to quite handle Snow's wild, party personality, Aaron gets caught up in the rock star lifestyle and doesn't have the best time adapting to it.

Get Him to the Greek isn't the best movie the Apatow group has put out, but it's pretty funny. It's hard to compare it to movies like Knocked Up and Funny People because those movies were aiming more for a plot line, coupled with the gut busting laughs. In this case, we have Stoller and the rest of the cast aiming for as many jokes as they can fit in to an hour and 45 minutes. It may not be the best formula, but what Stoller did here was essentially take a bunch of jokes, mold them around a generic plot line and then slapped it all together in chronological order. It's not the best way to do it, but they still came away with quite a few laughs.

I guess my biggest complaint would be toward the end of the movie. Things take a decidedly darker turn for about 10 minutes only to snap back into the lighthearted party theme for the final few scenes of the movie. Those 10 minutes bring the movie down a couple notches and feel completely out of place from everything else leading up to it.

The best character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was Russell Brand's role of Aldous Snow, and while he and Jonah Hill are both quite funny in this, the character that steals the show is Sergio Roma, played by P Diddy. It's hilarious one liner after hilarious one liner from him. A little on the vulgar side, but still a really funny performance.

Get Him to the Greek is rated R and for good reason. There is nudity in it, drug use, and a lot of language. It's not one that the kiddos should see, but is good for some laughs for the adults.
Overall I'd give Get Him to the Greek 3 out of 5 furry walls. It's not the best output from Apatow's people, but it's got enough great lines to justify it's existence.