Due Date

            Due Date is all about making friends out of the weirdest people.  The 2010 comedy road film stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis.  It was directed by Todd Phillips.  The film takes place in a few states:  Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Mexico, Arizona, and California.

            The film starts out with the main character, Peter, talking to his pregnant wife about a dream he had that involved a bear and the birth of their baby.  Peter needs to travel from Atlanta, Georgia to Los Angeles, California to be with his wife because she is scheduled to have a c-section for their first child.  As Peter goes through the airport, he meets his soon to be traveling buddy, Ethan.  Right off the bat, their relationship starts out sour.  Peter and Ethan’s carry-on bags get switched, and Peter gets caught with Ethan’s marijuana pipe at the security checkpoint.  On the plane, Ethan gets Peter kicked off the plane by mentioning the words “terrorist” and “bomb.”  This also puts Peter and Ethan on the no-fly list.  Since Peter does not have any identification, Ethan offers him a ride to Los Angeles in a rented car.  Thus starts their journey across the US to get to Los Angeles before Peter’s baby is born.

            Much to my surprise, the film relied more on verbal humor instead of gross humor.  For example, at one of the rest stops, Peter reveals to Ethan that his father left him and his family when he was young, and Ethan replies by first laughing, and then saying how his father would never do that because he loved Ethan.  This twist in how we expected Ethan to react is funny and unexpected.  Another example is when Ethan is talking to his dad’s ashes, he says, “Dad, you were like a father to me.”  Again, the word humor is pleasant and takes a little bit of thinking to get unlike gross humor.

            There were lackluster elements in the film.  For example, whenever Peter and Ethan’s friendship seemed mended, Ethan would always do something dumb, such as falling asleep and driving off a bridge, which would immediately ruin their mended friendship.  This makes the viewer think that Peter and Ethan’s relationship will never get better; furthermore, this pattern in friendship to no friendship gets old and repetitive quickly.  Another example of a lackluster element is that Peter’s character seems to stay flat and static.  Peter’s character is that of constantly being pessimistic, as evidenced at the beginning of the film when Peter is denying tons of baby names because they are unisex or have some vague relation to a bad connotation.  The audience expects main characters with a dynamic range of emotion; moreover, no one likes to be with a Debbie Downer, especially for more than thirty minutes.

            Overall, I give Due Date 3 out of 5 stars.  The film had good verbal humor, but the lackluster elements kept the film from reaching any true potential.