Film Review: Due Date

Due Date. MA 15+ (strong coarse language, drug use and sexual references). 95 minutes. Directed by Todd Phillips. Screenplay by Alan R Cohen, Alan Freedland, Adam Sztykiel and Todd Phillips.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Todd Phillips’s smash-hit comedy The Hangover (2009), will find themselves in incredibly familiar territory with his latest broad brushstroke, bromance-inspired road movie Due Date.

Wound-up architect Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is desperate to get home from Atlanta to Los Angeles in time to witness the birth of his first child. When his life, both literally and metaphorically, collides with that of Hollywood-wannabe Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) – the two new ‘friends’ find themselves on a “no fly list”. Their only choice is to hit the road in a hire-car and travel across the US.

While it owes a considerable debt to John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), in which Steve Martin and John Candy lit up the screen with their hilarious cross-country travails, Due Date, similarly, succeeds largely due to the performances of the magnificent Downey Jr and Galifianakis (who also stars in The Hangover). Without their absolute dedication to the task at hand, Due Date would more than likely have fallen flat on its flabby face.

As is often the case with these kinds of storylines, much of the comedy is derived from the catalogue of opportunities on hand when two mis-matched, self-absorbed individuals find themselves trapped in each other’s company, dealing with the results of often extremely complicated situations and mis-understandings. There are fantastic cameo appearances from Danny McBride as a Western Union employee and Juliette Lewis as a drug-dealing mother of two, whereas the subplot involving Jamie Foxx as Peter’s friend Darryl, is just a time-wasting diversion from the main game.

Peculiarly (especially with the wealth of talent on show) Due Date appears to be much longer than its 95 minutes, although the saggy pace is buoyed by a spectacular sequence in Mexico, a poignant scene on the edge of the Grand Canyon and a catastrophic series of events while Tremblay is ‘asleep at the wheel’.

So while we wait for The Hangover Part 2 (which is currently in production), Due Date is a perfectly guilt-free way to indulge in our enjoyment of Mr Phillips’ blokey, coarse, get-me-there-on-time shenanigans.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.