2010: The Year in Film: Get Him to the Greek Review

If you don't know by now, I'm a big fan of the Judd Apatow family of movies. 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Knocked Up, Funny People, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, they all are pretty high on my "best comedies of the last decade" list. All of these films have something in common - the same sweet, morally central core at the heart of a infantile adventure featuring man-children of varying degrees of maturity. From the same family (in fact, a quasi-sequel to Forgetting Sarah Marshall) comes "Get Him to the Greek", a madcap little romp through 72 hours in the life of the world's last true rock star as he makes his way from London to L.A. for the 10th anniversary concert to commemorate a legendary performance. The music industry is struggling, and mogul Sergio (Sean "Puffy" Combs) is looking for something, anything, to give his struggling company a shot in the arm. What they come up with depends on securing the services of a completely insane, degenerate, junkie rocker, Aldous Snow (a ridiculously over the top Russell Brand - reprising the character who stole the show in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"), who has fallen a long way from his peak, having released by all accounts one of the worst albums of all time and relapsed in a major way to his hard-partying past. Aaron Green (the always solid and funny Jonah Hill, who somewhat confusingly is playing a different character here than he did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall), a mid-level record company employee and major infant sorrow fan is tasked with heading to London to escort Aldous Snow from London, to NY for to the Today show, to L.A. for the concert. Aaron lives a pretty tame day-to-day existence, consisting of staying in and watching TV with his perpetually exhausted medical resident of a live-in girlfriend, Daphne (played sweetly and believably by "Mad Men"'s Elizabeth Moss). Needless to say, Aaron's world is about to get rocked by his encounter with the wild, out of control Aldous.

While there are plenty of wild partying scenes, general debauchery and gross out scenes, what really makes this movie worthwhile is the characterization of Aaron and Aldous. These two opposites really grow and learn from one another, and strike up a more than believable friendship. Like all of the Apatow family of films, at the heart of this flick lies a somewhat old-fashioned and innocent message. Aldous is charming,
smart and undeniably talented in addition to being a wildly out of control addict. What could have been one-note performances from Hill and Brand are instead nuanced and surprisingly touching, as you can't help but care about these people and feel the pain that lies underneath a lot of what they do.

Oh yeah - Russell Brand is actually a talented musician, and Infant Sorrow cracks me up. This is one of the better comedies I've seen in recent years, and I laughed out loud a lot. Well worth the price of admission.

7/10.