By: Lauren Cohen, The Campus Movie Guru (University of Miami)
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Aaron Green has just been given the most important task of his career: He has three days to go to London and pick up British rock star Aldous Snow, bring him to New York to make an appearance on The Today Show, and then finally get him to L.A’s Greek Theater where he has to perform a 10-year anniversary concert. Sounds simple right? Maybe with your average celebrity, but Snow is a whole new breed of party-er. We were first introduced to the character of Aldous Snow in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where he was sober and recovering. In Get Him to the Greek, Aldous is back to his Absinthe-drinking, narcotics-doing, sex-obsessed self….times 1,000.
Get Him to the Greek was produced by comedy-god Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, Superbad, 40 Year-Old Virgin, etc), and just as you would expect, his newest film carries on the same type of raunchy, obscene humor we’ve all grown to love. Filled with more gross-out humor than I appreciate (vomiting scenes galore), I felt that Get Him to the Greek, overall, was one of the least funny of Apatow’s movies. However, some moments of sheer comedy brilliance and hysterical performances from Brand, Hill, and surprisingly, P. Diddy, greatly helped the film.
When I left the theater I was somewhat split on my opinion. It felt like I watched two separate movies: the first half, of which I’ve described in this review thus far…and then the second half, which for reasons unbeknownst to me, felt the need to focus almost entirely on giving depth to Snow’s character, showing his reunion with his estranged father and highlighting his loneliness and longing for his ex-girlfriend. With a running time of only an hour and 40 minutes, Get Him to the Greek should feel anything but long…but towards the last act I found myself checking my phone for the time. Far from perfect, Get Him to the Greek was nevertheless very funny, amusing, and a good “bromance” film…for the most part.
Rating: B-/C+
