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Review: Due Date

Phillips, Downey, Galifianakis just barely deliver
By TOM MEEK  |  November 2, 2010
2.5 2.5 Stars

 

Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover) has made a career out of male-bonding road trips fueled by sophomoric indecency, and Due Date is more of the same. It even features Zach Galifianakis as a misguided manchild. Here his Ethan Tremblay is an aspiring actor heading to LA to make it — but as Ethan is boarding the plane, an altercation with Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.), a strait-laced architect heading home for the birth of his son (thus the title), lands the two on the "no fly" list. So now they have to share a car to cross the country. Planes, Trains and Automobiles it isn't. Ethan jerks off as a bedtime ritual, and he keeps an annoying French bulldog in a man purse. What's more, the reluctant-buddy arc and the ensuing chaos don't always jell. The film scores best when resident weirdos Heidi (Juliette Lewis as a drug-dealing mom) and Lonnie (Danny McBride as a hick cashier) size up the pair. It ain't old-school Todd Phillips, but it is Todd Phillips.

Related: Review: Dinner for Schmucks, Review: You Again, Interview: Zach Galifianakis, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Movies, Zach Galifianakis, comedy,  More more >
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