Get Him To The Greek

Synopsis: Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), an employee of a music label headed up by Sergio (Sean “P. Diddy” Combs) is sent tp London to collect rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), accompany him to a Today Show appearance in New York and then on to Los Angeles and the Greek Theater for a 10th-anniversary live concert.

They say that comedy is the new rock n’ roll. If so, then Russell Brand is its Mick Jagger. Here, in what amounts to a very small leap of the imagination, comedian Brand plays a rock star. Yep, if you didn’t know that about the film and are contemplating  seeing it because you are swayed by Brand’s brand of satirical stand-up comedy then that should start alarm bells ringing. And they are justified because although Get Him To The Greek opens with a spoof segment worthy of Sacha Baron Cohen, it quickly settles into a combination of Brand-exploitation and juvenile gross-out humour of which producer Judd Apatow is the leading contemporary proponent.  The best gags are largely physical, the high point of the film in this respect being a drug-crazed brawl in some kind of Las Vegas “gentleman’s” club full of skanky ho’s with silicone bosoms.

Brand’s character made his first appearance in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, also directed by Nicholas Stoller, a film which I have not seen but believe to be of middling quality. Since then Brand’s star has risen rapidly and Stoller’s film, which this time he also wrote, relies heavily on the English comic’s laddish persona. This has some appeal but thank heavens for Jonah Hill. Hill is here placed in a classic second banana role, a John Candy to Brand's Steve Martin for Gen Y. Like Candy, with his Oliver Hardy chubbiness he has a gift for capturing “uncomfortable” and as Snow’s hapless minder there are plenty of opportunities for him to apply his God-given talent. Without him the film would have been dire.  Less kind things can be said about Rose Byrne who in seven years has gone from having the world at her feet as the girl-next-door in The Rage In Placid Lake in 2003 to here playing a slutty pop-tart called Jackie Q and seemingly headed for Courtney CoxLand. Balancing out the typology of characters is Elisabeth Moss from television’s Mad Men who is quite serviceable as Aaron’s doctor girlfriend whilst Sean Combs is equally up to the task as his potty-mouthed "mo-fo" boss.

Probably what is most disappointing about Get Him To The Greek is the tepid plot. Basically it’s the same scene in which Aaron’s diligence is thwarted by Aldous’s bad behaviour, played again and again as the pair work their way to The Greek, after which the film wraps with a familiar homily about what really matters in life. 

 

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