In Due Date, Zach Galifianakis proves what I already suspected about the doltish man-child characters for which he’s become famous: just a dash will do you. It was a lesson learned the hard way for his traveling companions, including those of us eating popcorn and Jujubes.
The one who has it the hardest, though, is Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.), the obnoxious, too-tightly-wound architect who ends up saddled with Galifianakis’ Ethan Tremblay on a cross-country road trip. Peter is trying to get back to Los Angeles to his pregnant wife (Michelle Monaghan), who’s due to give birth to their first child any day. Ethan is also trying to make his way to “Hollywood,” as he naively calls it, to become an actor on his favorite television show of all time, Two and a Half Men.
When Ethan’s oblivious blathering gets Peter shot with a rubber bullet and forcibly removed from the flight home, the two end up on the no-fly list and must make their way back to the West Coast by land. One problem: Peter’s wallet and luggage are all still on the plane. So, borrowing from the great tradition of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, the odd couple (plus Ethan’s masturbating pup, Sonny, and a coffee canister filled with the ashes of Ethan’s father) team up, get into uncomfortable situations, break a few laws, and antagonize each other every step of the way.
Directed by Todd Phillips (who also shares co-writing credits), Due Date is meant to be a follow-up to last year’s wildly popular The Hangover. Well, I saw The Hangover three times in theatres. I own The Hangover on DVD. The Hangover is a friend of mine. And you, Due Date, are no The Hangover.
There are admittedly a handful of laughs to be found in the middle half hour of Due Date, after you’ve gone numb to how annoying these guys really are and before you start to hate yourself for watching. But that’s no thanks to the lazy, meandering script. These laughs are earned by virtue of the actors’ commitment alone. There’s a reason Galifianakis and Downey, Jr. have cornered the markets on dumpy dummy and unrepentant a-hole, respectively. And it’s not just years of practice.
What’s missing in this script is any grounding in reality. It’s one thing to have ordinary guys caught up in extraordinary situations like getting beat up by a handicapped Western Union teller (Danny McBride) or arrested by the Mexican border police when you’re high as a kite. The humor is in the recognition of that you personally would be no more equipped to handle that situation than the poor schmos on screen.
But both Ethan and Peter are unrecognizable as actual living humans. Peter is a name Nazi (I suppose I would be too if my last name sounded like hymen) with daddy abandonment issues, an out-of-control temper, and a mean streak so wide he spits in a dog’s face and punches a 9-year-old boy in the gut for annoying him. You know, perfect father material. Meanwhile, Ethan perms his hair, wears acid-wash jeans with Lillith Fair t-shirts, smokes too much pot, asks inappropriate questions blithely, is unashamed to masturbate in cars with other men in them, and thinks his dad tastes great when French pressed. Do you recognize that guy? What if I said he was also inexplicably fey?
It’s possible that not everyone will agree with me–if you loved Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, you probably won’t–but I firmly believe that with these kinds of two-dimensional, self-involved, supremely irritating characters, small doses are key. The Hangover worked because there were three pretty normal guys and a real friendship at its gooey center. The weirdo with the baby strapped to his chest was just the delicious dollop of crazy on the side. Due Date is all crazy, all the time. And not in a good way.
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