Full Title: Get Him to the Greek
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Year: 2010
Comments: First off, I must admit, I did not anticipate this film to be a Summer Blockbuster/Must See Comedy of 2010 to begin with. I did however, anticipate that this movie would be pretty funny, with me laughing out loud numerous times. A comrade of mine informed me that GHTG was the funniest movie since the Hangover (2009), which I really liked, but thought was overated itself. With those possible credentials, I gladly accepted an invitation to see the flick. Sadly, my expectations were not satisified. Before I start my critique, I will give y’all a little synopsis. So basically, we follow up on the exploits of Forgetting Sarah Marshal’s (2008) decadent Rock Star character, Aldous Snow (Russel Brand). Initially he and his wife are clean from drugs, but after the release of an embarassing flop album, he dives right back into the frenetic lifestyle, he enjoyed before. Essentially, his life and career are in shambles; he needs a revival. Enter Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a hip, young worker at Pinnacle Records and an enormous fan of Aldous. Aaron works for a corporate thug (P. Diddy) that only cares about marketing, image, and record sales, in other words, Diddy plays himself. And so this slick shit is looking for something big, to boost record sales. Aaron suggests asking his hero, Aldous Snow to do a ten year anniversery show of his classic, Live at the Greek album. The idea seems plausible; the only problem? Making sure Aldous arrives at the show. Thus a dream (or so he thinks) comes true for Aaron, for he is to be Aldous’ babysitter for a few days, untile he GETS HIS ASS TO THE GREEK. Wild, substance induced, adventures and minimal hilarity ensue. Now, that’s a really brief plot description and I trimmed out various, important details, so if you are looking for a full summary, look elsewhere! Ok, as I stated previously, I only laughed hard a few times and in general did not feel as amused as I should have. The premise works, but they do not take it in the right direction. They clearly suffer from the modern comedy syndrome of trying to throw too much shit at the wall and only half of it sticks. A lot of ideas are displayed here, but with very little substance to support them. The film should have abandoned its emotional elements and made a straight up, raunchy comedy. Not to say there are no raunchy jokes, there are plenty, but the film does not consistently stick with this style of humor and instead jumps around, leaving the viewer with a feeling of “where are they going?” A comparison to the Hangover, as made by my friend, is pretty far off, but just for a minute, let’s look at the two films and see why last Summer’s comedy was superior. Firstly, the Hangover never got too caught up in having a moral or creating a drama, etc. and smoothly provided an entertaining, hilarious ride for all of us. Secondly, the Hangover stuck like glue to its premise and amused the audience with one, wacky, unpredicatable moment after another, keeping your attention the whole time. Initially, GHTG appears to follow the same suit, but instead drags, stops to focuse on other plot details, and merely unleashes a couple of said wacky scenarios. A dedicated/enthusiastic fan only has three days to chase his heavy drinking and drugging Rockstar idol around, as he crawls to the most important concert of his career. Wow, what a great premise.There’s so much more they could have done with this and I’m positive the flick would have been infinitely better if they eschewed all the other aspects of the story. Just imagine if they took that concept and doused it in some chaotic humor of the Hangover variety. Well, they did not and so I found this film to be merely average. Not bad. Not good. Just average.

Grade: C