I saw Due Date a couple of weeks ago, and thankfully it was released before Potter-mania reared its ugly head again, so I did not have to push my way through a theater lobby full of wizards, cowls, and magic wands.
I have to say that I was skeptical due to the fact that I'm cautious when it comes to comedies because my sense of humor is so screwed to the point of eternal damnation that I usually find myself laughing at bits of audio from a local auto care commercial. ("We fix cars!") I won't go into details, but if you're interested in my bizarre, ridiculous humor sense, talk to my wonderful, patient girlfriend who has to tolerate it almost every day (God bless her), but she usually doesn't understand it either. I'm weird that way.
Due Date is most obviously influenced by the 1987 comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles, a film by the late, great John Hughes that didn't fare well at the box office at the time of its release but has gone on to become an 80's classic of epic proportions. (It's my favorite John Hughes movie.) Both movies deal with a stuck-up business individual trying to get home at a certain time to meet a family obligation. In Due Date, it's the birth of a child (duh!) and in PT&A (yeah, I just said T&A), it's Thanksgiving.
Due Date stars RDJ and ZG, and while neither is Steve Martin and John Candy respectively, they play very well off of each other. RDJ had been in an Oscar-nominated role in Tropic Thunder two years ago, and I had seen only one ZG comedy before this which was The Hangover. The plot (such as it is) involves RDJ's Peter Highman hitching a ride with ZG's struggling actor extraordinaire Ethan Tremblay, and the never-ending number of pratfalls that follow. And I must make reference that I think this is the only other comedy that I have liked which involves a dead man's ashes in a coffee tin. (The first being The Big Lebowski), and personally, I think that film made better comedic use of it.
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| "Donny was a good bowler..." |
Of course, Due Date sometimes feels like its been going on too long (and the movie runs only 100 minutes), and the talents of RDJ and ZG start to wear thin a little bit. I can only imagine what it would have been like if the duo's journey had been more like the crazy, heart-warming journey that Steve Martin and John Candy took. And while RDJ plays his character well, it's ZG's character that seems a bit one-sided. I was hoping for more of what John Candy offered in PT&A, which was a simple-minded annoyance, but at the core of who he was, he always played his character with love and honesty, never apologizing himself. ZG's character just seems clueless, like he's getting ready to board the next passive-aggressive train that comes by, and take RDJ with him. Steve Martin played straight man to John Candy's lovable oaf, but here, RDJ seems to be just trying to get by and just put up with the ZG character, which in turn makes the film seem a bit muddled by the time it reaches its conclusion. Have these guys REALLY become friends or not?
In the end, I guess it really doesn't matter. I laughed a lot during the movie, and I guess I was trying not to be spiteful due to the fact that I was just watching a retread of an 80's classic. The film is a great continuation of the odd-couple "buddy" comedy.
I could be a cold-hearted cynic I guess, but I don't like to hurt people's feelings.
Due Date, Grade: A -
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