Thanks for checking out our Get him to The Greek review.
Genre: Comedy
Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
Staring: Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Sean Combs, Rose Byrne
Released: June 4th,2010
THE GENERAL IDEA
Aaron Greenberg (Hill) gets things done. The ambitious 23-year-old has exaggerated his way into a dream job just in time for a career-making assignment. His mission: Fly to London and escort a rock god to L.A.s Greek Theatre for the first-stop on a $100-million tour. His warning: Turn your back on him at your own peril. British rocker Aldous Snow (Brand) is both a brilliant musician and walking sex. Weary of yes men and piles of money, the former front man is searching for the meaning of life. But that doesnt mean he cant have a few orgies while he finds it.
THE GOOD
The fun part of this movie is its characters, and most of the characters (everyone but Hill) were awesome. And Russel Brand was the icing on that awesome cake. Not only is his rockstar diva personality just a gem to watch, but he isn’t a shallow drunk getting into trouble. We really see that Snow is a broken man who has everything but nothing that matters. He has lost his girl (Rose Byrne) and their child, his career has hit a low with an offensive album called African Child and he hides his failures behind a facade built on drug abuse and liquor. He is very silly funny, but also very vulnerable and real. This made the film more than just a succession of gags and situation comedy. It has that too, but Brand nails this rockstar thing to the wall.
Even Sean Combs is awesome. I am not a fan of singers as actors, but he is playing the bossy over the top record exec and he might be chanelling the most outrageous aspects of people he met in the business. His supporting role was perfect in this.
There is a lot of funny in this movie. A lot. And some great cameos by people like Pink and Lars Ulrich and of course Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).
THE BAD
Brand was one of my favourite parts of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which this story is a spinoff of, so why bother adding Jonah Hill when he isn’t playing the same character he played in Sarah Marshall? That was very disjointed and not addressed at all. Hill is an entirely new character and while he excells at fumbling through Aldous’ antics, he just wasn’t engaging enough for me to care about his character.
Considering Hill is almost half of this movie, he took a lot of the appeal away from me. Thankfully there was so much more to play against that was better.
OVERALL
Russell Brand makes this film. And every negative the film has is glossed over by his awesomeness save Jonah Hill’s constant presence. I am really growing a distaste for the guy. If they had anyone else in this movie but Hill this would have rocked more than Infant Sorrow.
I give Get Him to the Greek a 6 out of 10 And would have got much higher if not for Hill.
