Review: "Due Date" is Another Tired Bromance Comedy (and a Sloppy "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" Retread)

You know how in the screwball comedy What's Up Doc?, Ryan O'Neal plays an uptight guy who has his life turned upside down by Barbra Streisand, who plays a kooky eccentric who pretty much destroys everything she touches?

That's basically Due Date, except it's a "bromance" between two men — and rather than have the leads be charming, they're both really, really annoying. Oh, and the movie's not funny.

Director Todd Phillips follows up the huge hit that was The Hangover with the story of Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) and Ethan (Zach Galifianakis), two travelers on a plane from Atlanta to Los Angeles. But when Ethan accidentally gets them thrown off the plane as terrorists (with Peter's wallet and identity still en route to Los Angeles), they have no choice but to travel cross-country together.

The result is a tired Planes, Trains, and Automobiles retread with a little bit of The Hangover's rawness and raunchiness (and complete implausibility) mixed in — and almost none of its humor.

I thought The Hangover was over-rated, but the fact is, it brought a few genuine laughs.

Here almost every scene feels like it was limply improvised on-the-spot. Downey Jr. and Galifianakis are talented (if self-conscious) actors, and their fans, and fans of The Hangover, will probably find something to appreciate here. But I checked out fast when it became clear that script was this familiar and this slight.

Some critics have suggested that Galifianakis' character "reads" gay, and it's absolutely true that he's prissy and fussy, has completely inappropriate boundaries with other men, and his sexuality is left undefined. And as with all these "bromance" movies, the female characters barely register; it's yet another movie about the deep emotional relationship between two men.

That said, I never saw any hint that Ethan saw anything sexual for Peter, and it didn't seem to me that the audience would interpret it that way either. 

If the movie is to be faulted for anything, it's not "homophobia" per se; it's that it's yet another film that reinforces the notion that effeminate men are creepy and inappropriate (even if he's ultimately supposed to be lovable).

For me, the Ethan character is a huge part of what's wrong with Due Date. Everyone said Sandra Bullock was so annoying in All About Steve (and she was), but I found Galifianakis to be far more annoying here: fingernails-on-chalkboard annoying and not ultimately likable in any way.

If Ethan did half the things to me that he does to Peter (getting him kicked off the airplane, lying, getting him beaten up, getting him arrested multiple times, destroying several cars, almost getting them killed multiple times), he would not ultimately win my heart, no matter how sad he looked carrying his father's ashes.

Robert Downey Jr.'s self-centered, uptight character isn't much more appealing. And neither character changes much, if at all.

I've thought for a long time now that American movie comedies are in a bad rut: too much bromance, too many slacker-losers, too much raunch, too much of a reliance on hammy SNL-type over-actors, and not nearly enough attention paid to the scripts.

Due Date confirms for me that all of these things are still true.