Movie Review: Due Date

Due Date (2010) 

Directed by Todd Phillips

Written by Adam Sztykiel, Todd Phillips

Starring Robert Downey Jr, Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Juliette Lewis, Jamie Foxx

Release Date November 5th, 2010

Published November 4th, 2010

The comparison between “Due Date” and the 80's classic “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is inescapable. Then again, as conventional as “Due Date” is, it can be compared to dozens of road trip comedies released in the decade and a half since Steve Martin and John Candy seemed to define the road trip aesthete.

Conventional may sound like a negative but it's just another way of saying that the humor of “Due Date” is familiar; you feel as if you have heard these jokes and witnessed these gags before. That said, despite the conventional approach of “Due Date” it is funny because stars Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis are funny. If you don't love these two actors and their opposing comic styles going in, don't bother seeing “Due Date.”

Peter Highman has a simple task ahead of him; board a plane for Los Angeles and three days later witness the birth of his first child as his wife Sarah's labor is induced. It all seems so simple until Peter meets Ethan (Zach Galifianakis). Ethan is a whirlwind of trouble; he and Peter meet when Ethan's ride to the airport nearly kills Peter as he is exiting his town car. The ensuing chaos causes Peter and Ethan to mix up luggage and Peter nearly misses the plane while carrying Ethan's marijuana pipe. Allowed onto the plane, Peter finds himself seated in front of Ethan and like clockwork Ethan sets about getting them thrown off the plane.

Since Peter's bags are on the plane and he had tucked his wallet in the seatback in front of him he has no money and no means to rent a car. He can't catch another plane because Ethan's rant about bombs and terrorists has landed them both on the no fly list. Now, with only his Blackberry on hand, Peter is stranded until Ethan comes along offering a ride.

Like Peter, Ethan is heading to Los Angeles. He is joined by his dog and the ashes of his late father packed in a coffee can. If you've seen the trailer and commercials then you have witnessed much of the wackiness that ensues during this road trip including crashes, arrests, injuries and the accidental ingestion of dad's ashes as coffee.

Thankfully, “Due Date” is a little more than the sum of its gags. What makes “Due Date” work, even as it contains few surprises and an overly familiar plot, is that Rober Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis are such a terrifically offbeat screen pairing. Downey and Galifianakis seem to have zero chemistry and that is exactly what works for this duo. 

Downey is brilliant in subverting expectations with defensive hostility; his Peter stubbornly refuses to accept that he is a character in a road trip comedy, one who because of social convention must accept pain, humiliation and delay simply out of kindness, and that stubbornness comes out in his righteously angry outbursts aimed at Ethan and even at his dog and his late father's ashes. 

Galifianakis too has a way of subverting what is expected of him. Employing a joyous mix of childishness and naiveté his Ethan is a man child of rather epic proportions. Not merely some Adam Sandler type who clings to his illusion of youth through fart jokes and other juvenile behavior, Ethan is truly an overgrown child with both the immaturity and vulnerability one would forgive in a pre-teen but comes off as just nuts in a big hairy adult. 

Ethan is a wonderful dichotomy. His behavior would be excused were he 12 years old but as a bear of a nearly 40 year old man his behavior is unpredictable, irritating and strangely charming. Zach Galifianakis is the rare comic actor who can play this dichotomy without it becoming an overbearing act. 

Director Todd Phillips had Galifianakis bring that same disquieting vulnerability to “The Hangover” and it gets the same big laughs this time. Yes, one must begin to wonder whether Zach can play a different comic note, for the record I believe he can, he did rather brilliantly in “It's Kind of a Funny Story,” for now this same comic note is still funny. Future roles will show how well Galifianakis plays other beats or somehow evolves this persona. 

Sure, you've seen this all before but thanks to Downey and Galifianakis, “Due Date” is still funny. The same jokes you've seen a few times in a few other road trip movies are funny because Downey and Galifianakis are telling them in a slightly off-key manner, one that works just for them. 

You have to be a fan of the comic styles of Downey and Galifianakis to like “Due Date.” You have to enjoy Downey's wry sarcasm ala “Iron Man” or “Sherlock Holmes” and you have to have enjoyed Galifianakis's man-child act from “The Hangover.” If not, “Due Date” will not work for you. I am fan of both actors and thus I really liked “Due Date.”