Premiering Saturday night on Cinemax was 2010’s “Due Date”, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zack Galifianakis.
In it, Downey plays a man who needs to fly home for the birth of his first child. But after an incident prior to take-off where he and Galifianakis are mistaken for terrorists, both are forced off the plane and put on the no fly list. As Downey’s character is unable to take his bags off the plane prior to take off, he has no ID and no money with which to rent a car. Enter Galifianakis, who he already can’t stand due to the aforementioned “incident”, but who happens to be also headed to Los Angeles. Downey begrudgingly accepts his offer of a ride and they embark together on an uncomfortable cross country journey.
Comedy occasionally ensues.
Downey is an uptight business man. Galifianakis plays a skin crawling annoyance who won’t stop talking and says stupid things constantly. Together, they occasionally come out with some funny things, but frequently they rub you the wrong way. The movie completely hamstrings Downey, who is a talented comedian, by making him an ill tempered, angry straight man. He should be the guy you get behind and root for in the film, but he’s pretty unlikeable. Galifianakis has his typical offbeat sensibilities, except with the annoyance factor cranked to ten. The problem with drawing comedy from annoyance is if it doesn’t wind up being funny, it actually winds up being annoying.
There were some decent moments, and some pretty good lines here and there, but for the most part, I didn’t find myself having too much fun with it.
C+
Fogs' Movie Reviews 
I had a suspicion from the promos that this would come across as an inferior Planes, Trains, & Automobiles. Getting a sense of that from your review as well.
This movie can’t even touch that movie, but yeah, that’s the general idea.
I believe this was already done. I think the name of the old movie is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Sounds familair
Except this movie isn’t as funny even though Galifianakis and Downey Jr are capable stars. It just didn’t hit me right.
There were some moments, though so it’s not a total D or F.
It had some promise because of the talent involved, but other than that, it really just blew and didn’t do anything to make me laugh, other than a really random Jamie Foxx line. Nice review Dan! I’ve still been trying to get my money back from when I payed to see this crap.
Yeah, this was one I was glad I caught “for free” (it’s not like HBO is free, but still…)
The material totally shortchanged RDJ and ZG, they could have been great.
Thanks Dan the Man!