Slashing The Seats

Russell Brand as an off-the-bandwagon rocker trying to make it to a gig. Sounds shit doesn’t it? On paper Get Him To The Greek looks like it was written on a coffee break at National Lampoon. In reality, it’s a right melon squeezer. Mainly because it’s quite good.
Despite Russell Brand freaking out the Jonas Brothers and lambasting the health system, the soon to be Mr. Katy Perry seems to have wormed his way comfortably into the US consciousness, and while his appearance as cartoon-rocker Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was fun, upgrading him to central character status was always a definite risk. Fortunately it’s one Brand files neatly alongside ‘massive cocaine intake’ and takes in his stride.

Story-wise things are kept simple and are effective because of it. Record company low-life Adam Green trying his hardest to get ‘the most self-destructive man in rock n’ roll’ (that’s ‘MTV Rock n’ Roll’ not actual rock n’ roll obviously – think Avrl Lavigne rather than Sabbath) from an unsurprisingly swingin’ London to glitzy L.A in time for his big comeback concert -with hilarious results obviously.

The odd-couple buddy movie setup is overtried and overtested, but writer-director Nicholas Stoller steps up to the plate with aplomb, throwing out the goofy-cutesyness that made Forgetting Sarah Marshall such a well received rom-com, and replacing it with full-on Judd Apatow nonsense that fits the character and the set-up perfectly. All that’s left is to roll from set piece to set piece in London, New York, Vegas and finally the city of angels and keep the yuks coming – and come they do.

Brand wholly inhabits his character, and given his public persona it’s not hard to believe in Aldous as a living, breathing, snorting, banging entity, grinding through various unlikely scenarios without batting an eyelid. Jonah Hill meanwhile, has much more of a journey. While he manages plenty of wide-eyed shouting and falling over, the movie also takes time to show his changing opinions of both Snow and the music business and means that we actually end up with a character we give a hoot about, something sorely missing from the majority of modern films. By taking time to flesh out the characters, Stoller actually delivers a film that’s…well, a film, rather than just a movie.

To be honest, all this was a surprise, but a welcome one. The movie gives off a comic vibe that’s closer to 80’s hits like The Sure Thing than the current crop of Hollywood straight to Blu Ray cobblers, and while there’s plenty of references to Sarah Marshall thery’re nice points for exsisting fans rather than confusing for newcomers. The central casting is spot-on, and there’s some fun support from Diddy (I even feel stupid typing that. How does the man live with it?)as Brand’s slimebag manager Sergio Roma (typical African-American name there), proving himself to have surprisingly fine comic timing, while Colm Meaney of all people is lots of fun as Snow’s obnoxious git of a father.Ocassionally the jokes are thin or easy – a particularly Cordon-esque workout secuence in particular -but on the whole there’s enough quality gags to make you forgive any rough patches.

Overall it’s no masterpiece, but it’s far better than it deserves to be, and while the prospect of a thinking man’s Superbad may be a very weird concept to get your head around, it’s one that you shouldn’t let your preconceptions stop you from seeing.

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