Note: this review initially appeared on AICN a few weeks ago but was pulled due to our misunderstanding the review embargo for this film. The same review now appears here again, unchanged and in its entirety, for your esteemed consideration.
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
When I first watched the trailer for GET HIM TO THE GREEK, I chuckled a little. Not hard. A little. I liked the idea. I liked the cast. I wanted this to work. But why wasn’t I laughing? Then it hit me. Russell Brand’s Aldous Snow was one of the funniest characters in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL – and virtually everything funny he said was positively X-rated. Jonah Hill, a very funny guy in his own right, is also best known for his ribald love of the raunch. Perhaps this is one of those films in which there is no way you can actually set up the jokes in this in under two minutes without sounding like an endless stream of scatological and sexual references? Maybe, just maybe, this is the PG-rated stuff they could pull from the film, praying that it would be enough to get asses in seats for the real jokes.
Guess what? That’s exactly what this is.
GET HIM TO THE GREEK is funny as fuck – a non-stop outrageous assault of hilarious obscenities chronicling the adventures of Aldous Snow, Rock Star, and Aaron Green, a low level music executive and hardcore Infant Sorrow fanboy sent to retrieve him for a concert. Snow is in a rut. He’s just released the single worst album of his career and has lost his mojo – turning him from a collected, sober rock icon into a drunken paparazzi-favorite. With the record companies in the dumps, still trying to work a broken commercial model, one exec starts looking for fresh ideas. Enter Green, reminding his boss (Sean “P. Diddy” Combs in a balls out funny performance) that it is the 10th anniversary of Infant Sorrow Live at The Greek Theater. Just desperate enough to try it, Green is dispatched to pick up the drunken has-been and bring him back to America to make him a star again.
What drives the film is not only its surprising amount of heart – similar to that found in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL – but that the film isn’t afraid to play around with Snow and Green’s relationship. Snow isn’t a total idiot. He’s a rock god Zen master. He might not know how the real world works or understand why his album African Child is incredibly racist, but in his element, he rules all. And he completely understands how to run Green through a gamut of tests to find out if he’s just the real deal or just another spineless suit. The beauty of this? Green *is* just another spineless suit.
Jonah Hill and Russell Brand are both in top form here. If you love what they do, this will be a full frontal assault on your gut; if not, I can honestly say that they don’t stray far enough from their own safety zones to do anything that might win you over. If you are one of those folks that can’t stand one or the other of the pair, this movie IS NOT for you. It’s pretty much them doing their thing for nearly two hours, interrupted occasionally by plot and emotion. Which, of course, is exactly why I love the living shit out of it.
These guys make me laugh. Hard. And this was pure concentrated Hill/Brand comedy. At this point in the review, you should know whether or not this is for you.While the film is a direct spin-off of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, it isn’t required viewing to understand it. Hill is NOT reprising his (small) character from it, though Brand is. There are a few callbacks, but nothing huge. The biggest one will be obvious to even those who haven’t seen it.
The film’s only problem is that the third act comes together a little easier and a little quicker than it feels like it should. While the jokes keep flying, there comes a point at which things feel just a tad too easy in order to get where they want to end up while keeping the jokes coming. And it all works, don’t get me wrong, it just feels a tad abbreviated. But that’s a small complaint. Everything else in this had me roaring with laughter, doubled over in my seat.
This is everything you want out of a comedy like this. Highly Recommended.
Until next time friends,
Massawyrm
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