A few years ago the film critic Nathan Rabin identified a stock character he dubbed 'The Manic Pixie Dream Girl' – those kooky kittens, often played by Zoe Deschanel (truly, the Katy Perry of Indiewood), who save soulful male protagonists from themselves. Well, I fancy there exists a male equivalent of the MPDG, who I'm calling 'The Healing Schlub.' A staple of screwball road comedies, these cheerfully disgusting stoners help steer their hard-ass co-passengers towards emotional closure with their man-child antics. The late John Candy specialised in them, and in Due Date Zach Galifianakis once again lollops up to the plate.
Here he plays beardy-weirdy Ethan Tremblay, resembling (like all Healing Schlubs) a space hopper rolled in Jägermeister, dog hair and pretzels. Cursing his luck for having hitched an emergency ride with him is uptight architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.), racing across America to be present at his first baby's birth.
In other words, it's Planes, Trains and Awfully Familiar Stuff; and although the movie's tagline is 'Leave Your Comfort Zone', we pretty much know where we're headed. Still, RDJ automatically adds value to anything he's in, plus Galifianakis is virtually reprising his hilarious breakout role from The Hangover – a wonderfully inventive treat for the Sideways generation, also directed by Todd Phillips. So what could possibly...?
Oh, everything. What a horrible misfire we have here: clichéd, mean-spirited, as amusing as a bed-locked fart, and tonally all over the road – swerving like a narcoleptic driver (or four scriptwriters) between lanes of slapstick, contrived pathos, and misguided gross-out. And generally, just terrible, terrible writing. (At one point the pair drive an all-too publicly stolen police car from the Mexican border to the Grand Canyon and nobody follows them.)
It's no wonder Downey Jr. – straitjacketed in second fiddle – looks cross, because, as usual, none of this is actually the cast's fault. All the same, Galifianakis might experiment with leaving his own Comfort Zone quite soon, lest he's written off as a one-trick Schlub.
Here he plays beardy-weirdy Ethan Tremblay, resembling (like all Healing Schlubs) a space hopper rolled in Jägermeister, dog hair and pretzels. Cursing his luck for having hitched an emergency ride with him is uptight architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.), racing across America to be present at his first baby's birth.
In other words, it's Planes, Trains and Awfully Familiar Stuff; and although the movie's tagline is 'Leave Your Comfort Zone', we pretty much know where we're headed. Still, RDJ automatically adds value to anything he's in, plus Galifianakis is virtually reprising his hilarious breakout role from The Hangover – a wonderfully inventive treat for the Sideways generation, also directed by Todd Phillips. So what could possibly...?
Oh, everything. What a horrible misfire we have here: clichéd, mean-spirited, as amusing as a bed-locked fart, and tonally all over the road – swerving like a narcoleptic driver (or four scriptwriters) between lanes of slapstick, contrived pathos, and misguided gross-out. And generally, just terrible, terrible writing. (At one point the pair drive an all-too publicly stolen police car from the Mexican border to the Grand Canyon and nobody follows them.)
It's no wonder Downey Jr. – straitjacketed in second fiddle – looks cross, because, as usual, none of this is actually the cast's fault. All the same, Galifianakis might experiment with leaving his own Comfort Zone quite soon, lest he's written off as a one-trick Schlub.