Due Date tells the story of Robert Downey Jr’s Peter Hyman (tee hee), who after meeting Zach Galifianakis’s Ethan Tremblay at an Atlanta airport is veetoed from flying back from said city to Los Angeles where his about to drop wife awaits, hence the title. So, after being relieved of his entitlement to fly, and indeed his wallet and credit cards, Hyman is forced to take to the road, indeed with the aformentioned wannabee actor Tremblay, who is on his way to Hollywood to make the big time. Much hilarity ensues.
To say that I wasn’t a fan of Todd Phillips’s Old School, or the 2009 comedy The Hangover would be like saying that I dislike the back catalogue of The Beatles, or looking at pictures of boobs. I love those movies, and they always stand up to repeat viewings in my house. I know that some critics that write for this website would disagree… Mr. Paul Koren, but I love them. I suppose that they relate with the kid that will always be hidden deep within me. Frank The Tank will always resonate.
So, Due Date is the follow up to Phillips’s most successful movie yet; the big one that saw huge success, with squillions and squillions of dollars in the bank. It made stars of it’s central cast and propelled them to super stardom. With Due Date we have one of those actors present in a role which is remarkably similar that of his in The Hangover, but that doesn’t say that I didn’t enjoy watching Galifianakis’s work in this movie. The actor provides most the of the laughs, bouncing off of Downey’s leading straight man through set piece after set piece as the two make their way across America. It’s a fun trip, and I dug this the first time around; it’s just that after taking the trip, I’m not sure that I would want to take it again quite so soom, so repeat viewings wouldn’t fare as well as some of Phillips’s other movies. That said, it’s still an enjoyable movie, and I howled at the cinema when I first saw it.
There’s a lot to discover on the DVD and Blu-Ray release too, of which I have had the chance of seeing both. Sure, the Blu delivers the better visuals and sound quality, plus a few extra features, so if you are looking for the superior option, or looking to future proof youself, opt for the BD triple play edition. With it we get a bunch of extras that are basically a quirky little gag reel, a compilation of the physical gags in the movie, called the Due Date Mash-Up Action, and another calld Due Date Too Many Questions Mash Up, a feature that focusses on what makes Ethan the most annoying man you can be stuck in a car with. Pretty standard. We also get additional scenes as wells as the complete unedited scene from Two and a Half Men, which features at the end of the movie.
To sum up, catch Due Date if you enjoyed The Hangover, Old School and any of the other Todd Phillips comedy flicks, just don’t expect to find anything that you would want to revisit any time soon. Full of offensive gags, high-concept comedy and one Zach Galifianakis, easily the film’s biggest asset.
Due Date is released on Blu-Ray and DVD in the UK on February 28th, 2011.
