Get Him to the Greek

Our little website is moving up in the world: today we were privileged to be invited to an advance screening of Get Him to the Greek. We can’t tell you how much we were blown away by the surprise hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the movie that originated the character of Aldous Snow, the eponymous out-of-control rock star played by Russell Brand in both films. It had fresh young talent, a beautiful backdrop, and a hilarious script. Get Him to the Greek pretty much had all of these things as well, just to a lesser extent. We will only be one of millions making this reference, but just think of it as a lone wolf version of Almost Famous. If you’re unaware, the plot focuses on a young employee at a record company, and his quest to save it and prove himself by resurrecting the career of his favorite has-been, Aldous Snow. The film gives its protagonist 72 hours to get Snow from his flat in London to the Greek Theater in L.A.

When it comes down to it, though, the script really doesn’t utilize the concept to its fullest degree. One of the problems that plagues this movie is its pacing. That monster of an attribute that can be thrown off if a single scene is a few minutes too long, pacing is hard to nail down, and when movies do it right, we usually don’t notice. But here (and I have to be fair, there is probably a little more editing to be done before it is released in a month), it’s pretty noticeable. We positively race through the opening of the film, and probably before page 10 of the script, we’re in England. This approach is fine, as long as the film as a whole chooses to simply sacrifice character for humor, but it never makes that commitment. So near the end, when it starts to get a little too preachy, the film starts to drag, and the laughs drop off pretty dramatically.

We’ve got to admit, there were some jokes in Greek that were just pure comedy gold. We won’t give anything away, but there’s one part in particular involving a certain comfortable piece of carpeting that is sure to stick around for years to come. There are quite a few self-referential nods to its predecessor and even Sarah Marshall herself, upon which Brand, nonplussed, spits out, “I think I used to have sex with that girl!” But for the most part, the jokes are a little bit too forced, and after a while they seem to tread the same ground. One scene in particular near the end, which must have had the writer rolling on the floor in tears at the concept, struck us as just plain uncomfortable. Handled differently, it might have hit the right chord, but it didn’t quite make it there. Nicholas Stoller, writer/director (and director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall), seems to be struggling a little bit in both roles, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not long before he hits his stride. The problem is simply that Jason Segel owned his characters, and in anyone else’s hands they come off a little bit flat. The talent involved in this movie is unquestionable: besides Russell Brand, we have Jonah Hill, Rose Byrne, the up-and-coming Elisabeth Moss, and Colm Meaney, whom we’ve loved ever since Layer Cake. However, what they do with these roles seems to spread out across the spectrum. First off, Rose Byrne plays Snow’s more successful musician girlfriend, and she is absolutely genius- I don’t think anyone has properly gauged her potential for comedy, but she shines in some very, very tongue-in-cheek music videos. Think Brand’s music video for “We’ve Got to Do Something,” but so much better. Moss and Hill do well as the main couple in the film, but unfortunately their “humanizing flaws” are more alienating than anything else. Although the film ultimately lifts them up as the sanest thing in an otherwise crazy urban world, we frankly wouldn’t touch that relationship with a ten-foot pole. Meaney is the most underappreciated and underdeveloped talent here as Snow’s father, but after all, he is supposed to be pretty much the only villain in the film.

We’ll end on a good note however, since there’s one aspect of the film that really stands out, and we’re pretty sure it inspired this film in the first place: Russell Brand, prancing and singing on stage. It’s Brand’s natural habitat, and every time the film puts him there, the awesome factor is notched up to 10. So in a way, that’s what drives it; not necessarily the somewhat plain and straight-forward plot, but simply the promise of Aldous Snow letting loose with some Infant Sorrow in front of you and the entire Greek Theater. The film jokes about it, but we’d totally watch an entire 2- hour live concert DVD of this thing. Brand even gets to stretch his stand-up muscles in the epilogue for a short while, a move we’ve seen before, in the recent Funny People. At the end of the day, however, it’s not a payoff that eradicates some of the mediocrity early on. So in no small part thanks to Russell Brand, this is certainly a film that’s worthy of hobnobbing with the list of recent Apatow successes, but unfortunately it’s doomed to be overshadowed by the likes of its predecessors.

-Brian