Friday, June 4, 2010
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Friday, June 4, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Get Him To The Greek
"Greek" Mythology: Less
Funny Than It Thinks It Is
Jonah Hill as Adam Green and Russell Brand as Aldous Snow in "Get Him To The
Greek", which opened today across the U.S. and Canada. Universal
Pictures
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Friday, June 4, 2010
The first five minutes of "Get Him To The Greek" (which have been seen online)
turn out to be the funniest in an otherwise tedious compendium of bathroom
humor, vomit material and sexual situations. Nicholas Stoller, who
introduced parts of North America to Britain's Russell Brand in "Forgetting
Sarah Marshall" (2008), writes and directs this new comedy, in which Mr. Brand
takes center stage as narcissistic, drug-abusing, licentious rock star Aldous
Snow.
Aldous must be squired from London to Los Angeles within three days for a
concert at the Greek Theater, and record company intern Adam Green (Jonah Hill)
is left with the thankless task. Both men, who are jerks with their
ladies, have problems with them. Both have problems saying no.
"Greek" has no problem depicting its women as either uptight or tart-like
creatures. (Comedies like these don't take women seriously because they
aren't supposed to?) I hark back to the days of yore where women in
American comedies were so smart, funny and the writing so sharp. These
days if a woman doesn't jump into bed on cue or sing about their nether regions,
an American comedy instantly turns into a Jane Austen film adaptation.
That said, "Greek" begins as a funny parody with potential, with Aldous zooming
down the Billboard 100 chart faster than a descending elevator at the Sears
Tower with the outlandish satirical song "African Child". Just as
rapidly Mr. Stoller's film becomes undisciplined, sinking beneath material that
is messy scatologically and structurally. One minute "Greek" has designs
as a romance with one or two needless subplots merely designed, it seems, to
stretch its running time. The next, it's an action film trying to emulate
"Pulp Fiction". One film "Get Him To The Greek" neither approaches nor
wants to is "My Favorite Year" (1982) with Peter O'Toole brilliant as a drunken,
past-his-prime star who has to perform a show to get the IRS off his back.
In "Get Him To The Greek" Mr. Brand spends much time doing tongue gyrations, as
if continuously imagining (or simulating) oral sex. Aldous looks like a
live-wired human eel, with a Cockney accent sounding more parrot-like each time
you hear it. Once you've seen five minutes of Mr. Brand's handiwork here
as an enfant terrible, you've seen it all. Mr. Brand's fans however, will
have an absolute field day of fun.
As for Mr. Hill, who will be seen in a slightly different light in "Cyrus" in
two weeks' time: in "Greek" he plays the wet-behind-the ears Adam as a blank,
malleable slate jolted into improvisation with each situation he faces.
Mr. Hill has played this role before -- the lovable lug prodded into action in a
place he doesn't necessarily want to be.
The beck-and-call celebrity chaperone/beleaguered celebrity is a theme depicted
in many better films, including the lackluster
"Funny People", in
which Mr. Hill appeared last summer. Judd Apatow directed that film as
well as "The 40-Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up",
so he's very familiar with Mr. Hill, having also been a producer or executive
producer on "Superbad", "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and Mr. Stoller's latest.
Most will find "Get Him To The Greek" outrageously funny and entertaining, but
for me this comedy wore thin, as did the repeatedly vertiginous camera that
hammers us to convey a character getting drunk or high. Visual effects are
substitutes for acting. (What happened to "Arthur"?) There's an
awkward cameo. There's endless cameos. The non-stop cursing -- much
of it by Sean Combs as a record promoter, who has some humorous lines -- grows
tired. Mr. Combs, who appeared on the Broadway stage in Kenny Leon's "A
Raisin In The Sun" a year or two ago, has great talent but needs better
screenplays and real big screen opportunities to show it. Hopefully he
will get them, and not very fleeting "pimp"-type moment he has in one scene
here.
In one movie that I love, a character says, "a man curses because he doesn't
have the words to say." In the case of "Get Him To The Greek", not much
new is said, and plenty of brainless pranks and set-ups are on display.
You can see where they will go from a continent away. In the end you don't
care about the oversized digital countdown to the Greek Theater concert and
whether Aldous gets to the church of him on time. He's already there,
right from the start.
Maybe I'm getting old, or prudish or something, but this type of s--- just isn't
that funny anymore.
With: Rose Byrne, Elisabeth Moss, Colm Meaney.
"Get Him To The Greek" is rated R by the Motion Picture
Association Of America for strong sexual content and drug use throughout, and
perverse language. The film's duration is one hour and
49 minutes.
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