Get Him To The Greek

The latest addition to the admittedly formulaic Apatow produced comedies, Get Him To The Greek doesn’t stray away from what we expect in terms of content, but includes a surprising movie stealing performance from none other than P Diddy.

Russel Brand stars as Aldous Snow (yes, the very same Aldous Snow as seen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, technically making this a spin off), one of the last remaining true rock stars who also happens to be burnt out and on the decline. Jonah Hill plays Aaron Green, a music fanboy who works for crazed music mogul, Sergio (Diddy). He is given the opportunity of a lifetime; to pick up Aldous from London for a 10 year anniversary show at the Greek theatre in Los Angeles. But with only 72 hours to do so, and having to deal with Aldous’ rockstar lifestyle, it turns out to be no simple task.

I’m not particularly a fan of Apatow comedies, but I don’t hate them either. They are hugely overrated though in my opinion; Superbad was for the most part painfully unfunny and just embarrassing to watch. Funny People was far from what the title suggests, and was an overlong snore fest. Pineapple Express is without the standout of the bunch, but still doesn’t deserve the praise heaped onto it, so I was a little dubious about seeing this. But my worries were laid to rest right at the opening scenes of Snow performing the equally genius and terrible song, “African Child”. Surprisingly, (apart from African Child) all of the songs written for Snow to sing are actually rather catchy, and better than the majority of modern pop music released at the moment.

As for Brand’s performance as Snow, well, he basically just acts how he usually does in public. Which, usually, I dislike; Brand had never struck a chord with my humour before this. But now, I’m intrigued to check out his live shows because I found myself laughing at material I wouldn’t usually find funny. But why? A large part of it is actually due to the chemistry between him and the Johah Hill. You have to sympathise with his character though – his valiant attempts to keep up with the rockstar lifestyle are admirable but lets face it, if we were in the same position as him, we’d also fail miserably.

My issue with the narrative is that it tries to hit too many emotions. Sure, it’s a comedy with many scenes of humour, but it also attempts to mock the music industry, as well as giving us an emotional back story on Aldous and his relationship with his ex. The problem with that is it affects the humour and the whole “REAL lives of a rock star” is unnecessary.

But, that’s a small gripe in what is predominately a successful comedy. The laughs are consistent and the characters are lovable. So if you’ve got nothing planned, get yourself to the cinema and check out one of the years best comedies.