Get Him to the Greek (2010) dir. Nicolas StollerStarring: Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, P Diddy, Elizabeth Moss, Rose Byrne
***
By Alan Bacchus
Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a good film, but Get Him to the Greek is even better, taking the supporting plotline of the audacious British rocker Aldous Snow and his shameless boycrush stalker Aaron (Jonah Hill) on it’s own in this rambunctious politically incorrect comic roadtrip.
Mondo drug use, alcohol abuse, inappropriate sexual fornication contributes to the strong carefree and anarachic quality of this film. Ten years ago they used to call this type of picture, ‘a gross out comedy’. But there’s more than just gross bodily fluids spewed about there’s something truly irresponsible and naughty about Get Him To The Greek.
P Diddy playing a record label executive assigns Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) from the first film, now an artist manager, to pick up Snow from the UK and, hence the title, bring him to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles to perform at his comeback concert.
Brand, who in real life seems to consciously embody the chaaracter of Snow as his stage act, is a spaced out druggie, who’s so far removed from conventional social reality. He is the rock star poster child. He’s the same aloof yet charming guy from Sarah Marshall, but Stoller fleshes out his backstory by inventing an ex-wife whom he has a young child with, in addition to his more developed drug addiction to everything under the sun. For Aaron, he has a humdrum relationship to his girlfriend, who is a doctor with absolutely no time for anything but sleep when she’s at home.
The journey from London to LA features a number of raucous set pieces, which are leaps and bounds more audacious than most of the The Hangover. Aldous Snow’s visit to The Today Show for instance produced riotous laughter, same with surreal Vegas sequence where Aaron finds himself high as a kite on a hardcore amalgam drug called ‘The Jeffrey’.
We take the good with the bad with these types of films. There’s a set piece or two too many, including the threesome scene in the third act with Aaron’s wife, where the film should have moved straight to the concert finale. But we'd still rather see the filmmakers swing for the fences than strike out looking.
To make this film passable by moral and ethical standards of conduct there’s some closure to Snow’s drug habit. But we can almost see Brand winking to the camera. We know Brand, nor Stoller mean it. Stoller and his character revel in this behaviour and the film is better for it.
