Get Him to the Greek

2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a total delight, delivering big laughs, heart-felt sentiment, and characters who were not only likable, but felt kind of real. It was one of my favorite comedies of that year. Get Him to the Greek, a spin off which focuses on a memorable supporting character from that film, will be lucky if it's even remembered by anyone when 2010 draws to a close. It's not bad, really. There are some laughs here, though not as big and not as many as Sarah Marshall had. But, the whole thing feels forced, and lacks a truly sympathetic character that we can get behind. What we get is some laughs, and even some preachy sermonizing coming from characters who probably shouldn't be preaching to us in the first place.

The thing kicks off promisingly enough at least, with a hilarious Spinal Tap-style documentary on the fall of the career of hard-rocking, hard-living, hard-drinking, hard-everything really British music star, Aldous Snow (played once again by Russell Brand). When we last saw him in Sarah Marshall, Snow was moving on with his life, but has since fallen on hard times. His latest single and music video, "African Child" (which depicts him as an "African Jesus" giving birth to a black African child), has become known as the biggest disaster in musical history, with critics dubbing it the third worse thing to happen to Africa behind war and disease. Because of the well-meaning yet disastrous album, his career has all but fallen off the map, his wife has left him and taken custody of their kid, and Aldous has dived back head-first into his old habits of extreme substance abuse in order to numb the pain of his life.

In order to resurrect Snow's image and career, the head of the music company (played by rap mogul Sean Combs, in an unhinged and profanity-spewing performance that reminded me of Tom Cruse's similar role in Tropic Thunder) sends a young intern named Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) to escort the singer from his home in London to the historic Greek Theater in L.A., where Snow is planned to give an anniversary concert of one his most famous performances from 10 years ago. Aaron is thrilled at the chance, not only career-wise, but also because he has been a long-time fan of Snow's music. He arrives in London to pick up Aldous, only to find the man completely off the wagon, and half-way out of his mind. What's supposed to be a simple pick-up and fly straight back to L.A. turns into a massive bender of sex, booze, and drugs that stretches across London, New York (where Aldous is supposed to be interviewed and perform on the Today Show), and Las Vegas, where Aldous goes on a search for his estranged father.

Green doesn't know how to handle the troubled rocker, and finds himself dragged into Snow's world of substance abuse where he's forced into sex, indecent public behavior, and even becoming a drug mule for the guy at an airport. It doesn't help that Aaron has his own problems back at home, stemming from his live-in girlfriend's (Elizabeth Moss) desire to move to Seattle where she would get better work, but would hurt his own career. All of this material could easily work, and it certainly does from time to time, but the film's great moments don't come together to create an all-together enjoyable film. It's a movie that works in bits and pieces, followed by long stretches that personally did little for me. As much as I have enjoyed Russell Brand and Jonah Hill in other films, they are not quite strong enough to carry an entire movie, or at least not this one. Brand's performance is a caricature of burned out British rockers that is funny in small doses, but not developed enough to be the lead of a 100 minute film. And Hill's character is too wimpy and underdeveloped to really matter much to us.

It's because of the two characters that the film has a hard time with the usual Judd Apatow (who produced the film) formula, in which a likable but kind of emotionally hindered guy finally learns to embrace adulthood. It feels forced seeing these characters making serious life-changing decisions, and finally opening up about their doubts and fears in the last half. This is especially true for Brand's character, who comes across almost like a Saturday Night Live-style parody character, and then suddenly develops a mushy and sentimental heart in the last few minutes. Hill's character, meanwhile, never connects. He spends most of the movie getting knocked around, shot up with drugs, and having stuff stuck in bodily crevices that he resembles more a walking physical gag than a real character. It doesn't help that his subplot with his girlfriend, which is supposed to be his main emotional hook, kind of gets lost in the madness of the screenplay.

I really wanted to like Get Him to the Greek more than I did. It starts out strong, and has some scattered laughs throughout, but not enough for me to fully recommend it. We really didn't need an Aldous Snow movie in the first place. His character worked well enough and ended on a perfect note in Sarah Marshall to begin with. As it is, this is not a bad movie at all. Just one that doesn't add up to very much when it's all over.

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