Movie Reviews

Get Him to the Greek

User Rating:  / 0
PoorBest 

     Fresh off a disastrous single "African Child" and a major breakup from his true love Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), Snow is in the doldrums barely hanging on and sinking into despair. He is living with his mother and her latest mooching lover. She offers him terrible advice on life and seems to care about anything but his well-being. Meanwhile we are introduced to our leading man Aaron Green (Jonah Hill). While Brand is easy on the eyes, Hill is an aberration by all movie star standards. His appearance makes me want to stop eating desserts permanently. Quite simply, he is grotesque. Appearances and superficiality aside, the man has his moments. Normally when an actor tries too hard like Tracy Morgan for example there is little humor produced. Hill becomes a mechanism of the humor although not its originator.

     Aaron is an affable music lackey working in a cubicle. Everyone in business without connections starts in the box. He is a lifelong fan of rock and roll and. During a staff meeting his boss Sergio (the man, the myth, the legend Sean "P. Diddy" Combs) asks if anyone has a revenue generating idea. Aaron courageously speaks up and vouches for a tenth year anniversary concert featuring Aldous Snow back at the Greek Theater. Channeling his inner Samuel Jackson, Sergio manages to swear at least a dozen times and after dismissing every employee’s ideas he turns up the hip hop and dances on the ashes of their suggestions. On a side note the funniest employee is Matty (Aziz Ansari, you might want to pay attention to his career, he is a rising star). After the meeting is over Sergio has a sudden change of heart and commissions Aaron to fly to London to pick up Aldous in order to bring him to Manhattan for a Today Show appearance, and then to the Greek for the anniversary show. For a rock star whose career is supposedly over, the show sold out in ten minutes. This leaves no room for error yet Aaron is inexperienced and green.

     Before leaving Aaron is confronted by his workaholic resident girlfriend Daphne (Elisabeth Moss). Daphne is a straight-edge doctor in the making with no concept of pleasing a man. She casually informs Aaron they are moving for a better residency program to Seattle. She does this without the slightest consideration for uprooting his career and leaving him penniless in a new city. They break up and all hell is about to break loose in his life. Once with Aldous, Aaron is heavily coerced into having sex with various gorgeous women, one of whom has a microphone cut better known as micro-pubes. Man what I wouldn’t give to announce my presence! Speaking of sex, Aldous is a master at cunnilingious. This will come into play with the most awkward and disgusting threesome ever near the end. Once in England Aaron is introduced both to Aldous’ dysfunctional family life and to his penchant for partying. If being humped by a beautiful woman on a toilet seat is the least of his problems his wining is intolerable! The downside is every time he has sex his phone randomly calls Daphne and this my friends belongs on ABC’s "Cheaters".

     By the time Aaron is able to move Aldous to New York he has lost all faith in his former idol. Aldous continually assures him this is the rock star way of life and he needs to embrace it. It is tough to wrap his arms around the idea of being an anally retentive control freak whose career is on the line when confronted with a maniac on drugs. In New York the duo is immediately carried away to the Today Show. Seconds before going live to perform his disastrous single "African Child", Aldous forgets the words. Aaron scrambles to find a script but utterly fails leaving the freaked out star to return to his roots and Aldous taking measures into his own high hands sings a former hit from back in the day. Everybody is happy except our pouty marshmallow man. Next stop the Greek!

     Or not. Aldous decides to have a good old-fashioned family reunion with his largely absent and dysfunctional dad played by Chief O’Brien, I mean Colm Meaney. Mr. Snow is sort of like his son except unsuccessful and a complete burnout. Nonetheless, despite setting a casino on fire and going through withdrawal both men manage to coexist while fist-fighting. In the middle of all this Sergio (Diddy) begins "mindfucking" Aldous. You don’t want to know! Ok you do want to know. Mindfucking in this case is a serious of telepathic suggestions sent from Sergio’s challenged mind to Snow’s hallucinating cortex alerting him to the necessity of making it on time to his one chance at a comeback and coincidentally sold out show. Sergio is no stranger to drugs or to placating stars no matter what the price. What an executive genius.

     Moments before entering the Greek, Aldous has an epiphany and decides to commit suicide by jumping off a ten story building in front of a crowd of adoring fans. This is of course prompted by more personal angst when Jackie Q decides to marry Lars Ulrich instead and Aaron runs off out of disgust from Aldous’ attempt to have a threesome with he and his girlfriend. There are a lot of wild rides in this show that you must watch to believe. The instant Aaron arrives to the rescue on account of a guilty conscience Aldous smiles at him and jumps. Rather than dying his arm hits the edge of a swimming pool (with no sign indicating not to dive) and bone begins sticking out of his elbow area. This is a state of the art work of makeup expertise. It is a gruesome sight that nearly made me regurgitate. Aldous then makes it (albeit late) to the Greek and performs with a bandaged nearly fatal wound. In reality Russell Brand performed for two hours live at this show for the fans. He is a performer as both a singer and a comedian and a damned talented one at that. The show concludes with several epiphanies from our artist extraordinaire and a renewed vow of abstinence from both drugs and alcohol.

     Snow’s loneliness is palpable, we can really feel his angst and suffering. As pointed out he has a brilliant mind and is trapped in a life of falsehood, mirages and chemical dependency. His willingness and ability to reform are the hallmarks of his true character. Sure he loves to fuck gorgeous women, perform in front of thousands of adoring fans, and have the occasional narcotically induced bender but that is par for the course with almost any serious rock star. Living the life both poisoned him and gave him something to hang onto as a smokescreen covering a cloud of depression. This character is real and not just a role written for specific movie. Watch this picture and tell me you cannot imagine this man existing in real life. More than anyone I can relate to this sort of loneliness. I have felt it my whole life and I can never seem to completely shake my addiction to feeling forlorn and disastrously isolated. That is the human condition and Brand takes over and makes us see this. It is the old feeling of standing in a crowded room and screaming at the top of your lungs but nobody hears you. If they hear you they fail to understand. The previews for GHTTG are so infinitesimal compared to the mountains of humor that is reminds me of someone rolling a tiny snowball down Mt. Everest. By the time the snowball reaches the bottom there is a gargantuan ice ball causing an avalanche. Much like the humor here it is uproarious.

Share

Add comment


Security code
Refresh

SCREENMEDIA Jonathan A Jacobs Photography Florida Micro Wushu Movies Wushu Movies Wushu Movies

Follow Us

Local Movietimes

Enter Zip Code

Movie Trailers

Like us on Facebook




Copyright © 2010 Screen Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy
Certain product data © 2010-present Screen Media, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.

Powered by SantosSystems