Due Date

The due date has finally arrived and the delivery room is all set, but this may be a baby that only a mother could love.
   
In the world of genius pairings, Due Date looked as if it had topped them all. The suave, sexy and incredibly manly/funny Robert Downey Jr. fresh off of Iron Man 2 and the bearded, gut-bustlingly funny, definitely going to be typecast Zach Galifianakis of The Hangover. What could go wrong? Apparently a lot of things.
   
Peter Highman (Downey Jr.) is on his way to Los Angeles from Atlanta so he can be present at the birth of his first child. After getting booted from the plane because of an altercation with Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) Peter finds himself with no money, no I.D. and only one way home. 3,000 miles and 3 days with the world’s strangest man.

Due Date is the equivalent of this decade’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The formula for a two-man road trip movie is simple. Have one man, through an unforeseen circumstance, be forced to rely on a second man. The second man must be nice at first but needs to have such a different personality and lifestyle than the first man; enough to create conflict down the road. The second man will then reveal something about himself that explains to the first man why he acts in such a way and the two will end up best friends forever. Due Date got all these steps right but threw away any likeable or enjoyable characters. Brief glimpses within the movie show some shreds of humanity within them but is tossed to the wind in the next scene. When Due Date finished, I was utterly dumbfounded when Peter and Ethan ended up as friends. It makes no logical sense because they are so at odds with each other.

And it’s a shame because Due Date is really funny. Downey Jr. and Galifianakis are kings of comedic timing. The situations they are thrown in become increasingly ridiculous and very funny: taking a wrong turn down the US-Mexico border after getting high (No, Officer my eyes are red because I have glaucoma), gunshot wounds, and launching off a bridge after Ethan falls asleep in broad daylight. It has all the makings of a classic road trip movie, but the only character the audience can actually relate to is Ethan’s dog, Sonny.

I may have been expecting too much, but putting Zach Galifianakis in a movie with Robert Downey Jr. should be pure gold. The due date may have been a little too early on this one.

2 and a half out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell