Get Him to the Greek: Review

Get Him to the Greek

Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
Starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and the many named Sean Combs


Get Him to the Greek is a sequel to the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. This is not a romantic comedy though, more of a “bromantic” road trip comedy with enough dark edges to make it interesting.

Russell Brand reprises his role of Aldous Snow, the out of control, addicted to everything rock star. The film opens with one of its best bits, a savage satire of the concerned celebrity “helping” Africa with Snow’s song and video, “African Child.” The politically incorrect and hopelessly self centred Snow doesn’t see the inevitable backlash coming, and after the critical and public pounding, sinks into debauchery after being sober for 7 years.

Now here’s where it gets a wee bit odd. Jonah Hill enters the picture playing a young music executive, Aaron Green for Pinnacle Records. The thing is, that’s not what he played in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I know his role wasn’t that big in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but to have a “continuation” of the story with the same actor in Brand playing the same role, and to have another actor who was also in that movie but now playing a completely different role, is a bizarre choice. I know people like to work with the same people, that’s understandable, but I’m sure they could have found another actor to play this role. That’s not to knock Johan Hill, the man’s a good actor and a good comedian (check out Cyrus when you get a chance, it’s his best role to date) but the casting is weird—not Harrison Ford suddenly playing Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back—but still.

It’s Aaron’s job to get Snow to an L.A. hall, The Greek Theatre, on time for an anniversary concert that will hopefully re-boot Snow’s career. That’s a simple and succinct summary of the plot, and it’s already right there in the title. But like all good road trips, the point of the film is what happens along the way.

Is the film clichéd? Yeah, sure it is. Can we figure out the ending from the first few minutes? Probably. But Get Him to the Greek succeeds where so many other road trip movies fail, by having the comedy come quickly and slyly. Indeed, there were a number of jokes nearly missed because they were subtle and politically oriented and almost thrown away. The editing and pacing of the film places the viewer right in Aaron’s shoes--desperately aware of the time slipping away but too caught up in the sleaze and the fun to stop it. Naturally, there are gross out gags, and some sophomoric humour, but mostly the film tackles the vacuousness of the music and entertainment industries.

The film’s not all yucks though. We get to see the emptiness of fame and the utter loneliness that comes with it. Why Snow is constantly consuming his “medicine” becomes more interesting than the clownish behaviour it produces. These more dramatic scenes are generally well done, even if somewhat predictable, but are smartly cut short before skidding into maudlin.

Get Him to the Greek is not a great film, but it’s good. And in it’s category of road trip/comedy/coming of age/redemption movies, it’s one of the better one’s you’ll find.

Point of Interest: Everyone should have a furry wall … for when it’s needed.