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.”

Movie Review: Catch and Release

Catch and Release (2007) 

Directed by Susannah Grant 

Written by Susannah Grant 

Starring Jennifer Garner, Kevin Smith, Timothy Olyphant, Sam Jaeger, Fiona Shaw, Juliette Lewis 

Release Date January 26th, 2007

Published January 25th, 2007 

Jennifer Garner is a stunner. Those lips; perfectly bee stung. That body honed from spy play on TV's Alias. And that perfectly indefinable quality that stars have, the effortless ability to be ephemeral. She's got all the assets necessary for stardom and she needs every trick in the bag to make the light breezy romance of Catch and Release work.

A romantic comedy that desperately wants to be more than it is, a female Cameron Crowe movie, an examination of life, death and grief, a sexy romp. The thin characters and thinner premise can only manage a surface level affability that, with a lesser actress in the lead would fail miserably.

Gray (Garner) has lost the love of her life. Her fiance Grady decided to go skiing days before their wedding and died in an accident on the slopes. At his funeral she is trapped with his family and their mutual friends and desperately wants to escape. Hiding in a bathroom she is mortified to accidentally witness Grady's best friend Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) hooking up with the caterer. Gray never liked Fritz before and this does little to improve things.

Unfortunately for Gray; Fritz is staying at the same place she is. Unable to move into the home she was to share with her fiancee, Gray moves in with their closest friends Sam (Kevin Smith) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger). Over the course of the week after Grady's death these four characters each deal with grief in their own unique ways and are tested by revelations about Grady's life that no one, except maybe Fritz might have expected.

The story of Catch and Release wants to be smarter and deeper than it is. Director Susannah Grant, a screenwriter (Charlotte's Web, In Her Shoes) by trade, directing her first feature, at times evokes a lighter version of the warm, nostalgic prose style of Cameron Crowe. What she lacks is Crowe's wit and ear for great dialogue.

The subject of Catch and Release is grief and how different people deal with it. But this is a romantic comedy so, much more time is devoted to developing roadblocks to romance than to delving deeper into the psyches of these characters where director Susannah Grant really seems to want to go. Why else would the movie devote so much time to each characters own quirky way of dealing with their friends death.

Romantic comedy formula tells you that when a male and female character loathe one another; they will eventually fall in love. This leaves the writer-director the challenge of finding ways to put up roadblocks to the couples eventual happiness. In Catch and Release, writer-director Susannah Grant has few new tricks up her sleeve.

There is nothing new here. Grant follows the romance formula. Her only hope was that her stars would be likable enough for us to feel comfortable inside the formula. And we are comfortable. Jennifer Garner is warm and sensitive and easy to fall for. Timothy Olyphant is roguish and charming and we root for him to redeem himself after his wretched introduction.

Then there is the movie's secret weapon, writer-director Kevin Smith. The man behind Silent Bob isn't much of an actor, as he readily admits, but trading off his famously self effacing personality, Smith's self deprecation and vocal mannerisms are terrifically funny. Whenever the film seems to lag a little Smith energizes things with a good joke. It's a bit of a cheat, Smith's Sam threatens to become more of a comic device than a character, but Smith is so much fun that you are unlikely to notice.

Catch and Release teeters on the verge of complete collapse. However, thanks to the megawatt smile of star Jennifer Garner and her unending likability, Catch and Release is a passably entertaining romantic comedy worth your time on DVD or cable in a few months.

Movie Review: Enough

Enough (2002) 

Directed by Michael Apted

Written by Nicholas Kazan

Starring Jennifer Lopez, Billy Campbell, Noah Wyle, Juliette Lewis, Dan Futterman

Release Date May 24th, 2002 

Published May 21st, 2002 

For all the jokes about Jennifer Lopez's personal life, singing career, and her backside, one thing people shouldn't joke about is her acting. With her performances in Out Of Sight, The Cell and the very under-appreciated Angel Eyes, J.Lo has proven she can act. Though her latest film Enough isn't as good as her previous films, it certainly wasn't her fault.

Enough is the story of Slim (Lopez), a waitress who while being hit on by a jerk cop named Robbie (ER's Noah Wylie), is saved by Mitch (Once & Again's Billy Campbell). What appears to be love at first sight turns into a marriage gone wrong. Several years after Slim and Mitch get married and have a baby named Racie (Tesa Allen), Slim finds out Mitch is cheating on her. When Slim confronts him, he beats her up. Slim eventually escapes and Mitch goes after her, leading the film from “movie of the week” drama to ridiculous revenge flick.

I saw a preview screening of Enough and I wonder if maybe the film wasn't finished yet. I say this because the first third of the film is such a complete mess your left wondering if a first-year film student high on Jolt Cola and Marlboro Lights edited it. Rather than developing a relationship between Slim and Mitch that makes sense, the film employs silent movie title cards to inform the audience of the stage of their relationship. Thus the audience is left wondering just what each character’s motivation was for being together at all.

The film does have some effective moments, mostly when J.Lo is on the run and training to fight her husband. Director Michael Apted does what he can with the limited script and effectively uses omniscient narration to build tension, especially in the film’s fight scene crescendo. In the end though, Enough is a ridiculous, revenge fantasy meant to appeal to the same girl-power feminists who made Ashley Judd's Double Jeopardy a 100-Million hit. See Enough for Jennifer Lopez's stellar performance, but if your not a fan, skip it. 

Movie Review: Whip It

Whip It (2009) 

Directed by Drew Barrymore 

Written by Shauna Cross

Starring Elliot Page, Kristen Wiig, Marcia Gay Harden, Drew Barrymore, Juliette Lewis 

Release Date October 9th, 2009 

Published October 8th, 2009 

As a kid I watched Roller Derby on Saturday nights. I never quite understood how the game was played but I loved the violence, the speed and the quirky humor. But the one thing that really stood out for me were the women. It was a mixed league where guys did a round then the ladies. I remember these women, some were giants and some were tiny and quick. It fostered in me a love of tough chicks. Whip It is a movie about the women I admired on Saturday nights. The bruisers and the speedsters. Beyond their toughness, director Drew Barrymore finds heart, humor and love while never losing that violent, attractive toughness that some call Grrl Power. Whateve they call it, I love it.

Elliot Page is the star of Whip It as Bliss Cavender. Trapped in a tiny Texas town where her overbearing mother (Marcia Gay Harden) forces her to compete in teen pageants, Bliss longs for something more. What that something more is, Bliss doesn't know yet. It finally becomes clear to her when, on a shopping trip to Austin, she spies girls on roller skates handing out flyers for Roller Derby.

Enlisting the help of her best friend Pash (Elia Shawkat), Bliss attends the match and it's love at first sight. When she hears about tryouts for her new favorite team, the Hurl Scouts, she pulls out her Barbie roller skates and hops aboard a senior shuttle to Austin and begins a secret life under her new name "Babe Ruthless".

All the roller girls have nicknames. There is Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell) and Rosa Sparks (Eve) on the Hurl Scouts. On the other teams there is Eva Destruction (Ari Graynor) and the leagues top roller Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). The names are part of the fun and bonding that give the film it's quirky heart.

Naturally, there is also romance in Bliss's new life as she meets and falls for a boy, a rocker played by newcomer Landon Pigg. While the romance blossoms and Bliss becomes a star there is inevitably trouble on the horizon. A requirement of this plot is her parents finding out and Bliss being separated from all that she loves. How Director Barrymore plays these scenes I will let you see for your self. I will say that while she cannot escape convention, Barrymore shows more skill with the expected scenes than a lot of mainstream directors who grow lazy in the face of convention.

The cast of Whip It is pitch perfect. Lead by the star turn of Elliot Page, leaving Juno behind growing into a movie. Alia Shawkat is a terrific comic foil with whom Page has great chemistry. The scene stealer however, is Kristen Wiig as Maggie, the heart of her team and just the right person to guide Bliss. Ms. Barrymore gives herself a remarkable role as well, one that requires her to put aside any and all star ego and just give in to pure excess. It's a very funny performance. Juliette Lewis makes a good villain, vulnerable but with the strength to kick the ass of anyone who takes notice of that vulnerability.

Marcia Gay Harden has not been this good since her Oscar winning role in Pollack. Her role is conventionally villainous but she short circuits that with humor and a painful longing that makes her sympathetic even as she is standing in the way of all of the fun. Paired with Daniel Stern as Bliss's sports addicted father, Harden is the perfect combination or harridan and heart.

Whip It is too predictable to go from a good movie to a great one but for what it is, it's a terrifically realized comedy with heart and humor and best of all characters we quickly come to love and care about. My memories of Saturday Night Roller Derby on cable are fuzzy now but I hope that behind the scenes things are something resembling this movie. I still love tough chicks.