GET HIM TO THE GREEK

“GET HIM TO THE GREEK” (Russell Brand & Jonah Hill)

The first five minutes of this film are absolutely hilarious so it sort of goes downhill from there, but it is still a fairly entertaining jaunt thanks almost entirely to Russell Brand’s second appearance as rock star Aldous Snow.
The reason his reprise is a better film than the original? This one has more Aldous than “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” had – and even though I didn’t care for ‘Sarah Marshall’ all that much, she does provide the means for another funny line from Aldous.
I liked this film, but as always, there are some major catastrophes; the most glaring is the casting of Sean Combs as a major player – once he sent Jonah Hill’s Aaron Green to ‘fetch’ fading rock star Snow from London and bring him to L.A. for a 20th anniversary reunion concert with his band Infant Sorrow, I thought Combs was done and I wouldn’t have to suffer any more of his atrociously bad acting, but no, he keeps coming back into play – Which begs the question, “Why in the world would anyone hire H.R. Puff’n’stuff (Or whatever he calls himself) to play a semi-major role in their film?”
If Combs said or did anything funny, I didn’t catch it because I was too distracted by his ‘Saturday Night Live Skit’ style of acting – I felt as though someone was standing just off camera holding his lines in large print on billboard sized cue cards.
I heard someone say this film was a break-thru for Jonah Hill – I will agree that he isn’t AS annoying as he’s been in previous roles, but Aaron Green is hardly a ‘break-thru’.
As a fellow overweight member of society you’d think I’d have more compassion for Jonah’s enormous bulk, but I’M not trying to become a movie star – If I were that lucky though, I know I’d work at trying to shed some pounds, but Hill looks like he’s packed on another 50 or so since his last outing – which makes it a little difficult to believe his character who works for a big-time agency that deals with big-time rock stars - I just don’t see a Sean ‘Piddle Puffy’ Combs hiring a fat slob like Aaron Green to work for him. Just to go off an on a rant for a sec; I say that because the ‘music’ industry has evolved into a ‘visual’ medium over the years – what you sound like isn’t nearly important as how you look these days – so why would Sean ‘Cuckoo for Coco-Puffs’ Combs hire a guy who looks like Meat Loaf’s chubbier brother, with an eternal 3 days growth of stumble accentuating his multiple chins? Answer, he wouldn’t... Yeah, I know, but sometimes I just like to bitch about meaningless matters.
Like I said, I laughed my a— off during the opening sequence featuring clips of how far Aldous Snow’s career had fallen and even though there were several humorous moments after that, none made me laugh as heartily as I did at the beginning. Every time Aldous is onscreen I enjoyed it and every time they went off to cover the side plots concerning Aaron’s relationship with his girlfriend or boss, it lost me. And it isn’t even a matter that the funniest moments belong to Brand - the poignant ones do as well.
I had a feeling I would like this movie from the trailer when Brand’s rock star hands Hill’s ‘gopher’ a small pouch of heroin & tells him to stick it in his rectum as they’re about to board a plane – when Aaron struggles to get the pouch in place, Aldous yells out, “Will you hurry up, it’s not meant to be a hobby!”
I don’t know, maybe now that I’m over the hill I’m reverting back to my childhood because I’ve liked “Get Him To The Greek”, “Hot Tub Time Machine” & “She’s Out Of My League” while finding very little humor in “Date Night” & the ruined version of “Death At A Funeral”. I just never know what's going to strike me as funny these days...