GET YOU TO THE THEATER
Get Him to the Greek
***
Review by Joel Frost
When we first met Aldous Snow, Russell Brand’s cinematic rockstar alter-ego, he was mucking about with Sarah Marshall in 2008’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”. Aldous was introduced as a self-centered yet not boorish bon vivant who was likely to steal any man and everyman’s girl without thinking twice about it, but not out of spite. He was the embodiment of the average fella’s nightmare… the foppish, flamboyant, famous and foreign fancy fellow who meanders in and performs his carnality without even trying. The world of women is not as mysterious to guys like him, with his rakish charm and bankable talent, his street-cred and tight jeans. He leaves a wake of sighing women and cuckolded men in his path, Sarah Marshall is just another notch on his belt… not that he’d bother to pause and notch.
“Get Him To The Greek” finds Aldous Snow adrift after the recent dissolution of his seven-year (not remotely) monogamous relationship. He has fallen off the wagon and headlong into hedonism, with all the panache and aplomb that a true British dandy with a recently broken heart can muster. His music career is losing traction (he’s “in his greatest hits era”, as he ruefully states it), and he’s as lost as a perennial wayward gent can be.
Soon, though, he is found by Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a rotund young music industry gopher who has been dispatched to shepherd Aldous from London to L.A. for a large anniversary concert meant to celebrate Aldous’s legacy. Aaron is the anti-Aldous; green and eager and unattractive (except to his girlfriend). Aaron idolizes the British rocker, and relishes the opportunity that his boss Sergio (Sean Combs/Diddy) has granted him. A recent domestic spat with his girlfriend has left Aaron somewhat adrift himself, and the stage is set for hijinks and lojinks between the ca-razy rocker and the na-ormal industry suit in their quest to deliver Aldous himself to the Greek Theater.
The road comedy is a Hollywood staple. From Hope and Crosby to Martin and Candy to Cohen and that weird fat guy, a mismatched pair on a quest is a framework that allows for twists and turns, laughing and crying, ups and downs, craziness and some more craziness. Like Odysseus, these characters try to make their way “home”, fighting ogres and avoiding (or not avoiding, in the case of Aldous) the sirens on the way. The real journey is, of course, the internal one that the characters travel, and how that is dealt with is likely the reason a comedy of this genre is successful or not.
“Get Him To The Greek” is rather and quite successful, precisely because it deals with that internal journey as much or more than it deals with the external one. It’s mainly Aldous’s story, this picture, and it’s not the story of a wild rockstar doing wild rockstar stuff so much as it is the somewhat painful (yet still quite funny) depiction of a lonely man coming face to face with things he can’t quite handle and doesn’t particularly want to. Aldous is running, but not just to get to the show on time. He’s a layered superficial rockstar, a tipsy contradiction, a heroin-fiend who’s a loving father. Russell Brand, a man who has perhaps lived through some version of Aldous Snow’s trip, is a fine creator and care-taker of the Aldous paradox. The two are convincingly one.
While certainly not as nuanced a depiction as some rock movies (“Almost Famous”, “Walk The Line”), “Get Him To The Greek” manages a certain amount of depth without compromising the laughs. Jonah Hill, playing the normal-guy who doesn’t constantly use profanity, as opposed to the normal guy who uses lots of profanity (his two characters to date), is the right foil for Brand’s Aldous. Hill subs for the audience in the film, puking and careening his way through the rockstar world, concerned that the boss will have his head for his irresponsibility. Diddy is well-cast as Sergio, a man seemingly driven into straight-faced yet hollering insanity by the music business itself and, one gets the idea, individuals like Aldous. Diddy is not much of an actor, but a role like this is right in his wheelhouse, and he delivers.
Colm Meaney shows up as Aldous’s tormented and tormenting jackass of a father, for a scene that deserves a spot in the drug-fueled what-the-hell-is-happening scene hall of fame. The next time you hear people chuckling about a “Jeffrey”, and “stroking the furry wall”, you can thank Nicholas Stoller, the writer and director of this pretty damn funny flick.
So, the two fellows travel a long way and find things about themselves and each other. There is laughter. There are tears. There is rock and roll. In a scene reminiscent of “Almost Famous”, a delirious Aldous leaps into a pool at a party, defying and inviting death. In “Almost Famous”, the hero walks away physically unharmed. In “Get Him To The Greek”, Golden God Aldous winds up with a bloody compound fracture, yet the show must go on. There might not be any moshing at a screening of “Get Him To The Greek”, but cheering certainly isn’t out of the question.
Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
Release Date: June 4, 2010
Run Time: 109 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: Universal Pictures
