‘Get Him To The Greek’ Review

Release Date – 6/4/2010

Aldous Snow has made, what critics are calling, one of the worst albums of all time. He also breaks up with his longtime girlfriend, fellow musician Jackie Q. This causes him to break his 7 years of sobriety and go on a three year drinking and drugging binge. His record company is looking for the next big idea to generate some cash. Aaron Green pitches the idea of a return to the Greek Theater for Aldous Snow’s band Infant Sorrow, who recorded there 10 years ago and made one of the best selling live albums of all time. Green gets assigned to personally pick up Snow from London and get him to the Greek theater in time for the big concert. The only problem is that Aldous is in full ‘party like a rock star’ mode and refuses to obey Aaron’s deadlines. This movie took a little while to get a head of steam but once it does, it becomes really funny. The two lead characters had great chemistry which made it work well but it was missing a little something to push it over the edge.

Russell Brand reprises his role from Forgetting Sarah Marshall as rock star Aldous Snow. Instead of the meditating yoga freak he was in the previous movie, he’s now a drug crazed lunatic. Drinking at all hours of the day and truly living the cliché rockstar lifestyle. He’s not making music anymore after being embarrassed by his Africa Child album, which was called one of the worst things to ever happen to Africa. Jonah Hill, who was also in Sarah Marshall but does NOT reprise his role, is a toned down version of his usual self with his character Aaron Green. He’s still a sarcastic little prick but he’s not annoying. Its not the screaming, whiny Jonah Hill from Superbad so its nice to see a change of character (although I did love him in Superbad). The movie revolves around these 2 guys partying while making their way from London to Los Angeles for the concert within 3 days. Supporting roles go to the likes of Rose Byrne as the female version of Aldous Snow, Jackie Q. She makes raunchy songs about sex and causes Snow to fall off the wagon when they break up. This provides a bit of a love story background to show where Snow’s demons come from. Also, a terrific comedic performance by Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs as the record company executive who loves to give the artists a “mindfuck”. He mindfucks the shit out of people. I was so surprised that he had me cracking up in several scenes.

Nicholas Stoller returned as writer and director but this time with no input from Sarah Marshall star Jason Segel. I think its obvious he did this one on his own. It didn’t have the belly laugh kind of moments that Sarah Marshall had. It definitely had a lot of funny parts and I still enjoyed the writing but it wasn’t as crisp story-wise. I can only assume its because the lack of Segel, who I find extremely funny. Plus Segel is a likable “everyman” type of character. Brand gets a bit overbearing at times. Stoller made a few references to the previous movie which were cool to see but other than that its barely a sequel. The beginning and end were like documentaries on the rocker so that was a unique aspect, and it was complete with an Infant Sorrow concert at the end so it almost becomes a rockumentary. I liked that aspect. Sandwiched with some really funny stuff in the middle and you get a really good comedy. Not a better movie than Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but sequels are tough to pull off. I think Stoller did a good job making a not so sequelly sequel. If the big laughs started from beginning to end then we would have had a MADE movie but it really took until the mid 2nd Act before I started laughing really hard. Now I’m going to go download all the great Infant Sorrow songs that were in this movie. Will you come for my Bangers, my Beans and Mash?

IMDB – N/A
Rotten Tomatoes – 73%
Movie Wiseguys – 7.5/10