When I returned home from Due Date a friend asked me what I thought of it. My immediate response was to compare it to a stand up comedy act that managed a few laughs, but in the end left me unsatisfied. Due Date has its jokes that work, most of which have already been seen in the trailers, but it has no idea what it wants to be tonally, and is just way too up and down to have a lasting impression.
Director Todd Phillips is riding a new wave after the success of The Hangover last year, a film he’s already busy shooting a sequel for, and for Due Date he’s teamed once again with one Hangover star in Zach Galifianakis and the man of the moment, Robert Downey Jr.
However, folks looking for The Hangover with this film will be sorely disappointed, but if you think of it as Planes, Trains and Automobiles mixed with the sarcastic timing of The Hangover and drench it in the dark comedy of Observe and Report you may have an idea of what to expect. However, liking any or all of those films doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like this one.
At the center of Due Date is Downey Jr. as Peter Highman (a name that serves as its own obvious punchline) and he’s got a bit of a nasty side to him, a side that’s ready to come out once he meets Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis). Peter is on his way to Los Angeles for the birth of his child while Ethan is a “Two and a Half Men” obsessed, wannabe actor who’s heading to Hollywood to make it big. Strangers at first, through a series of events Ethan lands the two of them on the “no fly” list and they soon find themselves traveling cross-country together from Atlanta to California in a rented Subaru.
It’s at this point the audience already has a pretty good idea of who these people are. Peter seems like a more-or-less down to earth guy with a bit of a short fuse while Ethan isn’t of this world. Ethan is an enigma of stupidity and he contains character traits I typically don’t accept in films. A good comparison would be the two morons played by Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Step Brothers. He’s so dumb, Peter’s impatience with him is deserved, but Peter’s overall reaction is so mean-spirited it was hard to enjoy what I was watching.
Peter’s nastiness may be adequate if he were dealing with a rapist or an axe murderer, but here it simply seems like he’s beating down a weaker human being due to his own egotism. Ethan’s intelligence level and social skills are so low, Peter’s treatment of him is akin to punching a baby. This is proven after Peter belittles Ethan to such a degree no human would ever seek an apology, yet Ethan comes back to him like a beaten down puppy. He may be pathetic, but Ethan has a heart, a heart Peter is likely to chew up and spit out.
Dark comedy typically stands out and announces its presence. The problem with Due Date is that it’s unwilling to accept what it’s trying to be. I compared this film to Observe and Report earlier, and the comparison is apt during the film’s darker moments, but otherwise fans of that film will likely be upset when this turns into a melodrama dealing with Ethan’s recently deceased father, whom he carries with him in a coffee can. Is this the kind of guy that deserves to be called insignificant and left at a freeway rest area?
Despite everything I disliked about the film, Downey Jr. and Galifianakis are true talents, both manage to create solid characters and turn in good performances in a film that unfortunately isn’t that good. Cameo performances from Juliette Lewis, RZA, Jamie Foxx and Danny McBride are decent, but in no way memorable. The best moment is probably when Phillips himself makes a cameo as Lewis’s roommate while Galifianakis does a Godfather line-reading, mimicking Brando’s performance and admitting he “worked really hard on getting the hand gestures” down.
Like I said in the opening, Due Date has its moments of comedy, but there is a mean streak running through it that turned me off. I never hated this movie as much as I was ready to leave when it was over and have no intention of watching again.
