Ventures nowhere new in its embrace of the odd-couple-on-a-road-trip formula.
Director Todd Phillips’ first film since his smash hit THE HANGOVER, DUE DATE debuts to perhaps unfairly high expectations of hilarious inventiveness. Regardless, the movie ventures nowhere new in its embrace of the odd-couple-on-a-road-trip formula; such comedic classics as PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (which also mastered DUE DATE’s uptight-workaholic-meets-carefree-slob formula) and MIDNIGHT RUN exist on a whole other plane.
Peter Highman (Robert Downey, Jr.) experiences calamity after calamity after crossing paths with oddball stranger Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta. Having lost his wallet and his ability to even board a plane (he gets put on the no fly list), Peter is forced to bum a ride with Ethan in his rental car to LA, where Peter’s wife will soon give birth. Comedy and chaos naturally ensues.
Downey and Galifianakis are both talented actors and funnymen, yet their comedic instincts are too often sideswiped here. Still, the movie does contain at least two genuinely hilarious moments, scenes that had me laughing loud and hard. And certain lines of dialogue and some subtle body language prompts grins and LOTI (laughter on the inside, bien sur) aplenty. Downey violently spitting in the face of Tremblay’s harmless dog for instance -- or even Tremblay’s odd, vaguely sexual caress of Ethan’s face in a hospital -- amuse because they’re so out of the blue, and out of the box. Such actions and scenes work because they’re presented in a fashion you’re neither used to nor see coming.
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