Due Date

OPENING: 11/05/2010

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

RUN TIME: 100 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Leave Your Comfort Zone

Opening Statement
Director Todd Phillips has been helming mainstream comedies for the past decade or so, but he rose to new heights with the unexpected mega-success of The Hangover. Phillips returns to the big screen with Due Date, a considerably more modest affair that’s both darker and sweeter than its predecessor.

Facts of the Case
Peter Highman (Robert Downey, Jr., Sherlock Holmes) is an architect and soon-to-be father. He’s currently in Atlanta on business, but is preparing to return home to Los Angeles in order to witness the birth of his son. Alas, an unfortunate run-in with an aspiring actor named Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis, Bored to Death) leads to a confrontation that puts both men on the “no-fly” list. For reasons too complicated to explain, Peter accepts when Ethan offers him a ride to California in a rental car. So begins a long, stress-inducing journey in which Ethan unintentionally does everything possible to make the next few days of Peter’s life a living hell.

The Evidence
I have to confess something: I still can’t figure out why The Hangover was such a big deal. Maybe it’s just that I didn’t get around to watching until after enduring six months or so of endless hype about its greatness, but I didn’t find its rowdy frat boy humor particularly remarkable. Sure, it had some fun moments (not to mention a very enjoyable breakout performance from Zach Galifianakis), but it hardly seemed deserving of the “best comedy of the year” label so frequently applied to it. Ah, well. There’s a part of me that wants to tell you Due Date is a better film, because it’s certainly a more mature film. Alas, despite noble intentions, much of the movie doesn’t quite work.

Phillips is essentially remaking John Hughes’ classic road movie Trains, Planes and Automobiles, in which uptight businessman Steve Martin has to endure the companionship of cheerfully irritating shower curtain salesman John Candy. In this film, uptight businessman Robert Downey, Jr. has to endure the companionship of cheerfully irritating wannabe actor Zach Galiafianakis. Some of the personality elements are different, and this film certainly has a nastier sense of humor, but the basic framework is the same (all the way down to the explosive argument scenes followed by sheepishly apologetic make-up sessions). However, there are a couple of big reasons the film doesn’t work nearly as well as Hughes’ beloved film.

First of all, the characters are a little problematic. Robert Downey, Jr. has been on a hot streak in recent years, with terrific roles in films like Iron Man, Tropic Thunder, Sherlock Holmes and Zodiac. Traditionally, he’s the intelligent yet unpredictable rapid-fire loose cannon running through the story (a note he plays very well indeed). In this film, he’s playing the straight man – the one trying to keep things together while someone else behaves in eccentric ways. Downey can do this sort of thing too (see his work in The Soloist), but Due Date hands him a repetitive role. Downey gets irritated, gets explosively angry, then sighs, apologizes and starts over again. That’s fine, but the script runs the character through this cycle a few too many times before the credits roll.

The Galifianakis character is even more troublesome. One of the reasons you were able to empathize with Steve Martin’s frustration and affection for John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles is that Candy’s character was so well-drawn: odds are you knew someone a lot like him. However, Ethan seems to have been invented specifically for the purposes of irritating Peter. The character’s behavior is too insistently wrong-headed and over-the-top on a regular basis to be convincing; the filmmakers go so far for laughs that they lose touch with reality. Galifianakis is a gifted comic actor and does some funny things in the role, but too many scenes fail to resonate because Ethan fails to feel like a real human being.

The second reason the film doesn’t quite work is that it can’t seem to find a way to reconcile its dark sense of humor with its warm, gooey center. We’ve seen plenty of recent comedies hiding warmth under raunch (including The Hangover), but some of the scenes offered in Due Date are a little harder to pull back from. Consider a scene where Peter punches a young child. The movie’s going for queasy laughter and gets it, but it’s hard to feel much sympathy for him afterwards when the movie turns sentimental. I’m not against edgy comedy, but it’s tough to turn convincingly warm n’ cuddly after a scene like that. Likewise, there’s a scene midway through the film in which Peter leaves a nasty message on his wife’s (Michelle Monaghan, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) answering machine. It would be a trigger for some seriously unpleasant conflict in real life, but the whole matter is smoothed over in seconds the next time the characters chat in the film.

Closing Statement
I’ve spent most of this review talking about Due Date’s problems, but it really isn’t that bad. The actors do valiant work despite the problems with the script, and there are a number of genuine laughs scattered throughout. Cameo appearances by Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers), Danny McBride (Eastbound and Down), Jamie Foxx (The Soloist) and RZA (Coffee and Cigarettes) hit just the right notes, and there are a handful of sublime self-contained moments. Unfortunately, Due Date adds up to less than the sum of its parts. It’s an interesting misfire.

The Verdict
6/10

Dinner for Schmucks

OPENING: 07/30/2010

STUDIO: Paramount Pictures

RUN TIME: 114 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Takes One to Know One.

Opening Statement
My reaction upon seeing the Dinner for Schmucks trailer was a blend of pain and pleasure. I like Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, but the premise seemed awfully flimsy. I also experienced a blend of pain and pleasure watching the film itself. To my surprise, the premise actually works, but other elements of the script do a lot of damage to a film boasting a wide variety of entertaining performances.

Facts of the Case
The oddball premise is this: every year, a group of businessmen get together and participate in a special dinner. Each businessman will bring the most idiotic person he can find along to the dinner. At the end of the meal, one of the guests will be awarded a trophy. Ordinarily, Tim (Paul Rudd, I Love You, Man) would be appalled at the concept of participating in such a dinner. However, he’s learned that his participation might just earn him a promotion at the office. Tim hesitates at first, but after he meets the peculiar Barry (Steve Carell, The Office) he cannot help but feel fate is shoving him in a very specific direction. Barry is one of the most spectacularly clueless and unusual men Tim has ever encountered. Barry is an IRS Agent who spends his free time making elaborate dioramas filled with stuffed mice. He has very little useful knowledge and provides those around him with a consistent stream of confidently-delivered misinformation. Tim invites Barry to the dinner, Barry accepts and the battle between Tim’s personal guilt and career ambitions begins.

The Evidence
There’s another battle taking place within the 110-minute running time of Dinner for Schmucks, too: the battle between the talented cast and the pedestrian script. For every funny moment delivered by the film (and there are certainly more than a few), there’s another groan-worthy sequence loaded with clichés and convention. Why, oh why must we endure yet another film in which a guy loses his girlfriend for the entire midsection of a movie due to some terrible misunderstanding that no one makes a real attempt at clearing up? This particular subplot does nothing but pad the film’s running time; had it been clipped the movie would have benefited immensely.

There are also plenty of moments when entertaining comedy will slip so far into broad farce that it stops being funny and starts becoming stupid. Please note the overlong sequence in which Tim’s ex-girlfriend Darla (Lucy Punch, Ella Enchanted) enters the fray, desperately attempting to engage in some over-the-top role play while Tim tries to speak to his girlfriend on the phone. I wanted to toss something at the screen. The same could be said of a scene in which Tim’s important business lunch is interrupted by the aforementioned Darla. You sense a theme, but I promise that Ms. Punch’s performance isn’t the problem; it’s just that she’s been given the worst scenes to work with.

Despite these problems, it’s easy to imagine many leaving Dinner for Schmucks with a smile on their face, as the film starts strong, ends well and contains a lot of delightful bits in-between. There’s some amusing corporate satire wiggling around in the background of the film, as Tim’s assorted superiors (including Ron Livingstone of the excellent corporate satire Office Space) are essentially depicted as a group of frat boys in suits, using their wealth and power to fund elaborate yet juvenile pranks. The group is led by Lance Fender, who is played by Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek). Greenwood is a reliable actor but deceptively versatile; he can play hollow corruption and warm sincerity with equal conviction. He’s called upon to do the former in this instance and does a fine job of it.

Paul Rudd and Steve Carell do an excellent job in the lead roles, even if we’ve seen shades of these performances elsewhere. Rudd’s turn is the same sort of exasperated everyman he’s patented at this point, though once again it’s refreshing to see that Rudd’s straight man portraits are just as funny as many of the “comic relief” characters that accompany him. Speaking of which, Carell may have a physical appearance and a general persona quite similar to Sandra Bullock’s spectacularly unsuccessful turn in last year’s All About Steve, but he makes it work. Unlike Bullock, Carell seems fully committed to his portrait of a loon, never second-guessing any of the wild antics he’s called upon to carry out. It’s essentially an exaggerated compilation of Michael Scott’s dumbest moments, but it works.

For me, the biggest laughs came from the supporting players. Zach Galifinakis (who has recently been cast in every single comedy being released over the course of the next two years) turns in good work as a co-worker of Barry’s who believes he is a hypnotist. Talented folks like Kristen Schaal (Flight of the Conchords), Larry Wilmore (The Daily Show), Chris O’Dowd (The I.T. Crowd) and others generate laughs in smaller parts. The best supporting player is Jermaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame) whose portrait of a pretentious artist is a consistent source of off-the-wall delight. Clement has a way of stealing the show in everything he appears in; here’s hoping we continue to see a lot more of him in the years to come.

Closing Statement
There are certainly a lot of funny moments in Dinner for Schmucks, which is what one hopes a comedy will provide. Alas, there are also simply too many moments that misfire for me to really recommend the film without reservation. I laughed, I winced, I smiled and I sighed. Bearing that in mind, I can only advise you to attend this dinner at your own risk.

The Verdict
6/10