Get Him to the Greek

Yesterday, during my daily visit to the pirate bay, I noticed that Get Him to the Greek was being consumed at an alarming rate. Having quite enjoyed Russell Brands last outing as the ostentatious minstrel and lothario Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and having a certain fondness of Jonah Hill (who doesn’t like a funny looking fat guy with an afro?) I decided it was worth a torrent.

I quite like Russell Brand, which is quite a statement during these post Sachsgate days it seems. I found him rather passable on television but always enjoyed his column in the sports section in the Weekend edition of the Guardian, and I was quite disappointed when he stopped writing for it. I suppose it was an inevitable sacrifice after he moved to America, thanks a lot Daily Mail. It was quite something to read his leftfield take on football, that’s as far as my literary interest in him goes however, as far as I’m concerned he can stuff Booky Wook up his Jacksy Wacksy, I can’t imagine anything more irritating than reading his undisciplined, wayward prose for a few hundred pages. What I’m trying to say is, that Russell Brand is quite good in small doses, rather like honey, or LSD, but you know what they say, too much of a good thing…

At its core it’s a high concept film. Aldous Snow is a whacky rock star whose career is waning after the disastrous record African Child (described as “the most detrimental thing to happen to Black culture since the Rodney King beatings”), and Jonah Hill has to Get him to the Greek theatre in LA where he had his most successful concert 10 years ago, for his barnstorming comeback. And as you can imagine, with Aldous being who he is, they get into various misadventures, snort various substances and spread various venereal diseases on their way.

Hill and Brand partaking in various high jinks, in this instance, going for a run while on cocaine

On the whole its fairly innocuous fun. Well innocuous to me, you might be a prudish bore, in which case it won’t be your cup of tea. Unlike the standard Apatow fare, this is also a step beyond his usual revenge of the nerds fare that Mark Kermode takes such an exception to, and it is undoubtedly a surrogate son of an Apatow film, a Naples if you like. With the DVD release coming out imminently the opening of the film is fairly timely given it shows Brand kicking cameras and getting press from a high profile relationship with a fellow celebrity. I should also note I was delighted to see Elisabeth Moss, best known as the wonderfully quirky (for once in a good way), Peggy in Mad Men. Mad Men in my mind being the finest show currently on television. In this she played a bit part but it was good to see her nonetheless.

This film will make you laugh which is a plus compared to the majority of comedies we see nowdays, the ripostes between Brand and Hill are perfectly amusing and the parody songs within it are genuinely funny, with a particular highlight being The Clap. Its certainly not Spinal Tap but it has its moments.

There are various high profile cameos in the film, such as P Diddy Daddy Puff Combs, Katy Perry, Pink and even Pharrell, here demonstrating fuchsia is not his colour 

However around the 1 hour 20 minute mark it does grind to a halt, I thought it would peter out over the next 10 minutes but to my dismay, it went on for another 30 minutes. 30 minutes that really needed to hit the cutting room floor, and this is the films undoing. It’s overlong, rambling and a tad ill disciplined, particularly towards the end, things that were fine before such as Jonah Hill vomiting start to rub you the wrong way, you begin squirming, and you wonder if Russell Brand could be anymore of a rock star cliché.

It doesn’t have enough narrative strength to deliver on its running time unfortunately, more of a plot and a bit of reeling in by the editor and this would be a good comedy, however in my mind, its average fare. In the end, we just get too much of this film.

As far as a comedy is concerned I’m always gonna be a tad harsh on it in terms of ratings, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make me laugh, and taking the lead from Messrs Mayo and Kermode, I thought I should include some sort of laughter tally at the end of my review as well as the general out of 10 rating

Get Him to the Greek Laughter Tally; 6 titters, 7 chuckles, 9 laughs

Overall 6 out of 10, it feels like a kind of 3* film to be honest, its alright, not great