Due Date- Comedy Is About Timing, Not About Making People Stupid

The most important elements in a movie, in my opinion, are a good storyline, an excellent script, and of course, character development. These are what make a movie, and not a piece of crap. I've watched countless movies ever since I finished my SPM examination. I started off as a noob, but I developed. I recognized which movies are worth watching, and which are not. During my A-levels, I went out every weekend just to watch a movie. Most of the time, I went out alone. Whenever I was really in the mood, I can watch up to 3 movies in a row. From there, I began to recognize which movies are good, and which ones are bad.

This, I can confidently say, is a bad movie.

Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is a highly-strung architect who is flying home to Los Angeles for the birth of his first child. Due to some Apatow-esque farcical events caused by Ethan Tremblay (Zack Galifianakis), Peter ends up being shot by an air marshal and put on a "no-fly" list. As luck would have it, fortune comes in the form of Ethan, who offers Peter a lift to LA, as Ethan himself is travelling to Hollywood to try his luck at becoming a "real actor". Straight away the two men's diametrically opposed personalities clash, and we find out that Ethan has a second motive for his travels - to spread his recently deceased father's ashes. After that, Peter discovers that this journey will turn out to be a cross-country road trip that will ultimately destroy several cars, numerous friendships and Peter's last nerve.

Holy cow, this movie gave me a headache. Rotten Tomatoes website gives it a 39% score rating, and its not difficult to figure out why. However, let me talk about the good stuffs first. Robert Downey Jr. is wonderful as always when it comes to acting. He has that sort of charm that would make almost anyone fall in love with the way he acts. I don't know how to put it, but its there. Secondly, I love the inclusion of Two And A Half Men in this movie, and, sadly, I think that the comedy portrayed by Two And A Half Men is the only laugh-out-loud moments that I found, and even that wasn't much.

Now, for the negative parts of the movie. Sigh..... where do I even begin? Okay, okay, lets start with the comedy. Wait... what comedy? The most I could offer while watching this movie was a smirk. I just... I just don't know what to laugh at. This movie aims to be a road trip comedy but it failed so hard. Every attempt of the movie at being comical was either 'meh..' or disgusting. Disgusting how? I'll give you an example. Ethan masturbates before he sleeps and he does that while Peter is sleeping next to him. Peter wakes up to find out what Ethan is doing and screams at him. Ethan replies by saying that he always does this before he sleeps and it takes him around half an hour to do so. I don't find it funny. I find it DISGUSTING! Seriously, I think the movie developers just included this scene because they realized that their previous attempts at making jokes in the movie were poor, but this is utterly ridiculous!

Next, the characters. Apart from Robert Downey Jr., the other characters were bad. There's Sarah, Peter's wife who is expecting her first child anytime soon. First of all, if your wife is pregnant, shouldn't the husband be around her, especially when it is just 5-6 days before labor? If I am a husband, I wouldn't leave my wife when she could give birth anytime soon, but I don't know, maybe some husbands do that and some don't. Maybe Sarah is strong enough to take care of herself, I don't know. See, I don't know. The audience do not know anything about Sarah except that she's Peter's wife, she's pregnant with her first child, and she's good friends with Darryl (Jamie Foxx) which I'll get to later. This is the most common mistake in movies nowadays. We don't know much about the characters that are significant to the main character. Sigh..

However, the most offensive criminal in this aspect is Ethan. God, Ethan. This character is a disgusting, utterly ridiculous sleazebag. His main aims throughout the journey are to travel to Hollywood to pursue his dreams in becoming an actor and "menyemadikan"(Sorry, I forgot the English word for this) his late father's ashes at Grand Canyon. Okay, fair enough. Now, you would expect someone to carry their late father's ashes in an urn, but no, he had to carry it in a coffee container. Why? Because his late father loves coffee, and this resembles his respect towards his late father...... Right.... Then comes the joke about them preparing coffee without realizing the fact that they used the ashes instead of, y'know, real coffee beans. Granted, it is Darryl who prepared this coffee but why did he use Ethan's coffee container instead of his own? Logics, people.

Darryl is Peter's best friend and they spent some time at his house while on the way back to Peter's hometown. There is one scene here which could be a spoiler, so I won't elaborate on what it actually is. However, this particular scene has potential in being a major plot point in this story, but then, it stops just like that. The movie doesn't explain what actually happened and why it happened, so the viewers are left to themselves to figure it out. That is NOT a good movie element.

This movie tries to portray Peter as a no-nonsense man and Ethan as this idiot, disgusting guy who needs our sympathy. Robert Downey Jr. played his part excellently. However, you'll soon discover that you will side with Peter anytime of the day compared to Ethan. Well, at least I do. See, its because Peter portrays a real human being with a brain while Ethan does not. Some characters in movies are meant to be comic relief while at the same time maintain their human aspects in a natural, believable manner and this is what makes us laugh at them and with them. Ethan is not one of those characters and I've clearly mentioned this when I was talking about him masturbating. Ethan has a dog. What is the purpose of that dog? Did it help Peter when Peter was injured? No. Did it manage to be a hero of some sort? No. Did it manage to provide comic relief? HELL NO. The only "comic relief", or probably the only thing that dog did in this whole movie was masturbate along with its master. At this point of the movie, I was practically brain-dead, and its not even halfway through the movie!!!

There are clever jokes and there are jokes that make fun of you because it thinks that the audience are stupid. Don't watch any comedies that portray the latter. Examples? I Love You, Beth Cooper and Epic Movie. Seriously, the audience need to learn what separates these two categories of jokes. If you want to watch a comedy movie that is really, really worth it, go watch Paul. You'll laugh your ass off. This movie, however, makes my ass sigh in disgust. Not recommended.

Rating: 1/5 stars
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