Once upon a time, a filmmaker set out to make a comedy about a group of kids on an ill-fated road trip that sends them through crazy circumstances and hijinx to find themselves closer than ever after the experience.
This was Todd Phillips' Road Trip back in 2000 with Breckin Meyer, that Stiffler kid from American Pie and Tom Green as he was still riding his improbable and inexplicable rise to fame.
Todd Phillips is back with a new road trip comedy called Due Date that is oddly reminiscent of this and every other road comedy with crashed cars and brushes with the law and an implausible pairing that turns into a warm, fuzzy friendship after all of these wild and crazy experiences create a bond that only a second-rate road trip could create.
In spite of being a terribly trite concept, Due Date actually made me laugh pretty hard at a few points and kept me at least amused throughout.
This is probably mostly due to the comedic skills of Zach Galifianakis and the prickish straight man delivered well by Robert Downey Jr. and the actual entertaining chemistry the two have.
Given the choice, I'd rather watch Galifianakis do his stand-up and watch Downey play Tony Stark, but they both do well carrying this film through some rough patches that would probably have fallen flat with most other actors.
There are a lot of wildly unrealistic scenarios that go so outlandish that it's hard to maintain that willful suspension of disbelief, but still provides amusing scenes.
Due Date gets a C+ mostly for the two lead actors, without them, it probably would have scored much lower for me.
--John Berry, Online Editor--