Get Him To The Greek

I have to say that I was quite surprised watching Get Him To The Greek. All I knew about the movie beforehand was that it was an indirect sequel to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, with Russel Brand reprising his role of the rock star Aldous Snow and Jonah Hill playing a music industry guy trying to get him to a big performance at the Greek theater while much hilarity ensued. Since it was from the same team as Sarah Marshall I figured it would be a lot of light-hearted comedy with some grossness thrown in there. Instead I got about half that, and half Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And you know what? It really worked.

Snow, who in Sarah Marshall was a sober yoga machine trying out monogamy, is now with an equally famous songstress wife and has a child with her. However, after releasing an incredibly racist track called "African Child", his career immediately spirals down, his wife leaves him and gets custody, and he returns to his rock and roll drug-ridden debauchery.

Meanwhile, a record company owned by a guy named Sergio (played hilariously by P. Diddy) is losing money, and he needs some new ideas to start raking in the dough again. Enter Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), a fan of Aldous Snow, who suggests that they hold a concert for the 10 year anniversary of Snow's most famous concert at the Greek theater. Snow agrees to it, and Aaron then has to get Snow from London to the Today show to make the announcement, and then to the show itself.

Aaron's prudence doesn't last long against Snow's complete disregard for everything besides living like a rock star, and is soon sucked into his trippy and seemingly carefree but really quite depressing life while still trying to remain on good terms with his girlfriend back home. Yes, they get into some quite hilarious situations, but the surprising thing about this film was just how deep they reached with the seriousness of Snow's addiction and how much drugs ruined both his life and everyone else's around him. Brand seems to have been born for this part, and Hill surprised me by finally giving us a character that isn't the same as all the other parts he's played (though admittedly it wasn't dramatically different). But it was that serious tone that really set this movie apart from the typical Apatow fodder.

It's kind of easy to see where this movie's going to end right from the beginning, but eventually the plot doesn't even really matter. What matters is the experience along the way, and Nicholas Stoller has provided a wonderfully balanced experience that treads confidently between slapstick and high drama. The movie does simply fall flat in some scenes, or goes too over the top, but in between is a surprisingly solid movie.

Get Him To The Greek gets an 8/10.